The Demon Awakens by R.A.

Salvatore
Copyright 1996

Prelude

The demon dactyl came awake. It didn't seem such a momentous thing, just a
gradual stirring in a deep cave in a far, empty mountain. An unnoticed event,
seen by none save the cave worms and those few insomniacs among the bevy of
weary bats hanging from the high ceiling.
But the demon spirit had awakened, had come back from its long dormancy
into the statuelike form it had left behind after its last visit to the world
called Corona. The tangible, corporeal body felt good to the wandering spirit.
The dactyl could feel its blood, hot blood, coursing through its wings and
mighty legs, could feel the twitching of its mighty muscles. Its eyes flickered
open but" saw only blackness, for the form, left standing in magical stasis in
the deep cave, head bowed and wings wrapped tightly about its torso, had been
covered by magma. Most of the fiery stuff of that time long past had bubbled and
flowed away from the cavern, but enough had remained to harden about the
dactyl's corporeal form. The spirit had come back to Corona encased in obsidian!
The demon spirit fell deep within itself, summoned its powers, both
physical and magical. By sheer will and brute strength, the dactyl flexed its
wings. A thin crack ran down the center of the obsidian sarcophagus. The dactyl
flexed again and the crack widened, and then, with a sudden powerful burst, the
beast blew apart the obsidian, stretched its great wings out to the side, clawed
tips grasping and rending the air. The dactyl threw back its head and opened
wide its mouth, screeching for the sheer joy of the return, for the thoughts of
the chaos it would bring again to the quiet human kingdoms of Corona.
Its torso resembled that of a tall, slender man, shaped and lined by
corded strands of taut muscle and sporting a pair of tremendous batlike wings,
twenty feet across when fully extended and with strength enough to lift a full-
grown bull in swift flight. Its head, too, was somewhat human, except more
angular, with a narrow jaw and pointed chin. The dactyl's ears were pointed as
well, poking up about the demon creature's thin tuft of black hair. Neither did
that hair hide the creature's horns, thumb sized and curling in toward each
other at the top of the demon's brow.
The texture of its skin was rough and thick, an armored hide, reddish in
hue and shiny, as if lit by its own inner glow. Shining, too, were the demon's
eyes, pools of liquid black at most times, but shifting to fiery red orbs,
living flames, when the demon was agitated, a glow of absolute hatred.
The creature flexed and stretched, extended its wings to their full glory,
reached and clawed at the air with its humanlike arms. The demon extended its
fingernails, transformed them into hooked claws, and grew its teeth-two pointed
canines extending down over its bottom lip. Every part of the demon was a
weapon, devastating and deadly. And undeniably powerful though this monster
appeared, this demon's real strength lay in its mind and its purpose, the
tempter of souls, the twister of hearts, the maker of lies. Theologians of
Corona argued over whether the demon dactyl was the source or the result of
evil. Did the dactyl bring the weakness, the immorality, to humanity? Was the
dactyl the source of the deadly sins, or did it manifest itself and walk the
world when those sins had festered to the point of eruption?
For the demonic creature in the cave, such questions hardly mattered. How
long had it been? the dactyl wondered. How many decades, even centuries, had
passed since its last visit to Corona?
The creature remembered that long-ago time now, savored the thoughts of
the streaming blood as army after army had joined in delicious, desperate
battle. It cursed aloud the name of Terranen Dinoniel, who had rallied the
humans and the elves, chasing the dactyl's armies back to the base of this
mountain, Aida. Dinoniel himself had come into this cave after the beast, had
skewered the dactyl...
The black-winged demon looked down at a darker red tear marring its
otherwise smooth hide. With a sickening crackle of bone, the creature's head
rotated completely around and bowed, examining the second imperfection of its
form, a scarred lump under its lower left shoulder blade. Those two scars were
perfectly aligned with the dactyl's heart, and thus, with that one desperate
thrust, Dinoniel had defeated the demon's corporeal body.
Yet even in its death throes, the dactyl had won the day, using its willpower to
bring up the magma from the bowels of Aida. Dinoniel and much of his army had
been consumed and destroyed, but the dactyl...
The dactyl was eternal. Dinoniel was gone, a distant memory, but the demon
spirit had returned and the physical wounds had healed. "What man, what elf,
will take Dinoniel's place?" the demon asked aloud in its hollow, resonating
voice, always seeming on the edge of a thunderous roar. A cloud of bats
shuddered to life at the unexpected noise and flew off down one of the tunnels
formed when the lava had flowed from this spot. The dactyl cackled, thinking
itself grand to be able to send such creatures -- any creatures! --scurrying
with a mere sound. And what resolve might the humans and the elves -- if the
elves were still about, for even in Dinoniel's day they had been on the wane-
muster this time?
Its thoughts turned from its enemies to those it would summon as minions.
What creatures could the dactyl gather this time to wage its war? The wicked
goblins certainly, so full of anger and greed, so delighting in murder and war.
The fomorian giants of the mountains, few in number but each with the strength
of a dozen men and a hide too thick and tough for a dagger to puncture. And the
powries, yes, the powries, the cunning, warlike dwarves of the Julianthes, the
Weathered Isles, who hated the humans above all others. Centuries before,
powries had dominated the seas in their solid, squat barrelboats, whose hulls
Were made of tougher stuff than the larger ships of the humans, as the
diminutive powries were made of tougher stuff than the larger humans.
A line of drool hung low from the dactyl's mouth as it considered its
former and future allies, its army of woe. It would bring them into its fold,
tribe by tribe, race by race, growing as the night grows when the sun touches
the western horizon. The twilight of Corona was at hand.
The dactyl came awake.

Part One
FATE

What song is this, drift through the trees

To lift men broken from their knees?
To untwist hearts from grasping sorrow,
To offer the promise of the morrow?
Hark, what song,
What music sweet?
Warm whispers of the dawn.

Hot blood waft steam in night air cold.

What hopes of treasure, what hunger of gold
Hath brought foul beast from caverns deep
To face the Nightbird, to know endless sleep?
They come for greed.
They come to bleed.
At gentle hands of elven breed.
The shining sword, the horse's run,
The bane of monsters all and one.
To their midst the rider, Nightbird the Ranger,
Flashing Tempest's anger, denying the danger
Cutting and slashing!
Tearing and gashing!
Chasing the nightmares away.

Fast run, you goblins, the Ranger sets his bow,

To let ;your blood, to stain white snow
Arrow and arrow, the river of red
Fast fall the Evil, to the one is dead.
Hawkwing's fury,
Goblins to bury
In worm's cold domain.

Scatter, goblins, fly and flee!

You'll not outrun Symphony.
Hooves of music rend the gloom
Bearing Nightbird, know your doom!
At Tempest's fall,
So shall you all To blackness evermore.

A way drifts music, Symphony sweet.

A way goes Nightbird, the forest to greet
In springtime sunshine, of Evil no traces,
Through flowers and lovers, step measured paces
Hark, listen you all
The Nightbird's call
And sleep peaceful lovers, secure.
-"THE SONG OF THE NIGHTBIRD"

CHAPTER 1
The Unexpected Kill

Elbryan Wyndon was up before the dawn. He dressed quickly, fumbling with his
clothes in the red light of the hearth's glowing embers. He ran a hand through
his tousled straight hair -- a light brown shock that bleached pale on its top
layers under the summer sun. He retrieved his belt and dagger, which he had
reverently placed right near his bed, and Elbryan felt powerful as he
ceremoniously strapped the weapon about his waist.
He grabbed the heaviest wrap he could find and rushed out into the dark
and chill air, so anxious that he hardly remembered to close the cabin door
behind him. The small frontier village of Dundalis was quiet and eerily still
about him, sleeping off the well-earned weariness that followed every day's hard
labor. Elbryan, too, had worked hard the previous day-harder than normal, for
several of the village men and women were out in the deep forest, and the boys
and girls, like Elbryan who was nearing his teens, had been asked to keep things
aright. That meant gathering wood and tending the fires, repairing the cabins-
which always seemed to need repair! -- and walking the perimeter of the
sheltered vale that held the village, watching for sign of bear, great cat, or
the packs of hunting wolves.
Elbryan was the oldest of those children, the leader of the pack, as it
were, and he felt important, truly he felt a man. This would be the last time he
remained behind when the hunters went off on the season's last and most
important expedition. Next spring would bring his thirteenth birthday, the
passage from childhood in the hardy land that was the northern wilderness. Next
spring, Elbryan would hunt with the adults, the games of his youth left behind.
Indeed he was tired from the previous day's labors, but so full of
excitement that. sleep had not come to him. The weather had turned toward
winter. The men were expected back any day, and Elbryan meant to meet them and
lead their procession into the village. Let the younger boys and girls see him
then, and afford him the respect he deserved, and let the older men see that the
village, under his watchful eye, had fared well in their absence.
He started out of Dundalis, stepping lightly despite his weariness,
passing through the darker shadows of the small, one-story cabins.
"Jilly!" The call was not loud but seemed so in the quiet morning air.
Elbryan moved up to the comer of the next house, smiling for his cleverness, and
peered around.
"It could be today!" protested a young girl, Jilseponie, Elbryan's closest
friend.
"You do not know that, Jilly," argued her mother, standing in the open
doorway of their cabin. Elbryan tried to muffle his snicker; the girl hated that
nickname, Jilly, though nearly everyone in town called her that. She preferred
the simple ""Jill." But between her and Elbryan, the title was Pony, their
secret name, the one Jilseponie liked most of all.
The snicker was soon gone, but the smile remained, all the wider for the
sight. Elbryan didn't know why, but he was always happy when he saw Pony, though
only a couple of years before, he would have taunted her and the rest of the
village girls, chasing them endlessly. One time Elbryan had made the mistake of
catching Jilseponie without his male companions nearby, and of tugging too hard
on her yellow mane to prove the point of his capture. He never saw the punch
coming, never saw anything except how wide the blue sky had suddenly seemed as
he lay on his back.
He could laugh at that embarrassment now, privately or even with Pony. He
felt as though he could say anything to her, and she wouldn't judge him or make
merry of his feelings.
Candlelight spilled out onto the road, softly illuminating the girl.
Elbryan liked the image; every day that passed, he found that he enjoyed looking
at Pony more and more. She was younger than Elbryan by five months but taller
than he, standing about three inches above five feet, while the young man, to
his ultimate horror, had not yet reached the coveted five foot mark. Elbryan's
father had assured him that Wyndon boys were normally late in sprouting. All
jealousy aside, Elbryan found the taller Pony quite a pleasing sight. She stood
straight but not stiff, and could outrun and outfight any of the boys in
Dundalis, Elbryan included. Still, there was a delicate aura about her, a
softness that a younger Elbryan had viewed as weakness, but the older Elbryan
viewed as oddly distracting. Her hair, which Jilseponie seemed to he constantly
brushing, was golden, silken, and thick enough to lose a hand in; it bounced
about, her shoulders and back with an alluring wildness. Her eyes, huge eyes,
were the richest and clearest blue Elbryan had ever seen, like great sponges
soaking in the sights of the wide world and reflecting Jilseponie's every mood.
When Pony's eyes showed sadness, Elbryan felt it in his heart; when they soared
with sparkling joy, Elbryan's feet moved involuntarily in dance.
Her lips, too, were large and thick. The boys had often taunted Pony about
those lips, saying that if she ever stuck them to a window, they would surely
hold her fast for all eternity! Elbryan felt no desire to tease when looking at
Pony's lips now. He sensed their softness, so very inviting ...
"I will be back in time for the morning meal," Pony assured
"The night woods are dangerous," her exasperated mother
"I will be careful!" Pony responded dismissively, before the older woman
had even finished the sentence.
 Elbryan held his breath, thinking that Pony's mother, often stern, would
scold the girl severely. She only sighed, though, and resignedly closed the
cabin door.
Pony sighed, too, and shook her head as if to show her ultimate
frustration with adults. Then she turned and skipped off, and was startled a
moment later when Elbryan jumped out in front of her.
She reflexively cocked a fist, and Elbryan wisely jumped back.
"You are late," he said.
"I am early;" Pony insisted, "too early. And I am tired."
Elbryan shrugged and nodded down the road to the north, then led the girl
off at a swift pace. Despite her complaints concerning the time, Pony not only
paced him but skipped right by him, obviously as excited as he. That excitement
turned to sheer joy when they passed out of the town and began their ascent of
the ridge. Pony chanced to look back to the south, and she stopped, stunned and
smiling, and pointing to the night sky. "The Halo," she said breathlessly.
Elbryan turned to follow her gaze, and he, too, could not suppress a grin.
For stretched across the southern sky, more than halfway to the horizon,
was Corona's Halo, the heavenly belt -- a subtle tease of colors, red and green
and blue and deep purple, a flowing soft ness, like a living rainbow. The Halo
was sometimes visible in
the summer sky, but only during the deepest parts of the shorter nights, when
children, and even adults, were fast asleep. Elbryan and Jilseponie had seen it
on a few occasions, but never so clearly as this, never so vibrant.
Then they heard a distant piping, soft music, perfect melody. It floated
through-the chill air, barely perceptible.
"The Forest Ghost," Pony whispered; but Elbryan didn't seem to hear. Pony
spoke the words again, under her breath. The Forest Ghost was a common legend in
the Timberlands. Half horse and half man, he was the keeper of the trees and the
friend of the animals, particularly of the wild horses that ran in the dells to
the north. For a moment, the thought of such a creature not so far away
frightened Pony, but then her fears were washed away by the sheer beauty of the
Halo and the fitting melody of the enchanting music. How could anyone, or
anything, that could pipe so beautifully pose a danger?
The pair stood on the side of the ridge for a long while, not speaking,
not looking at each other; not even realizing that the other was there. Elbryan
felt totally alone, yet one with the universe, a small part of majesty, a small
but endless flicker in eternity. His mind drifted up from the ridge, from the
solid ground, from the sensible experiences of his existence into the unknown,
exhilarating joy of spirituality. The name of "Mather" came to him briefly,
though he didn't know why. He didn't know anything at that time, it seemed, and
yet he knew everything -- the secrets of the world, of peace, of eternity -- it
was all there before him, so simple and true. He felt a song in his heart,
though it had no words, felt a warmth in all his body, though he was not at that
moment a part of that corporeal form.
The sensation passed too quickly. Elbryan sighed deeply and turned to
Pony. He was about to say something but held the words, seeing that she, too,
was immersed in something beyond language. Elbryan felt suddenly closer to the
girl, as if they two had shared something very special and very private. How
many others could look upon the Halo and understand the beauty of the thing?
wondered. None of the adults of Dundalis, certainly,
with their grumbling and grouching, and none of the other children, he decided,
who were too caught up in silliness to ponder such thoughts.
No, it was his experience and Pony's -- theirs alone. He watched her
slowly drift back to the reality about them -- the ridge, the night, and her
companion. He could almost see her spirit flowing back into that five foot three
inch body --a body that was growing more shapely by the day.
 Elbryan resisted the sudden and inexplicable urge to run over and kiss
Pony.
"What?" she asked, seeing turmoil, even horror, come over his face,
despite the darkness.
The boy looked away, angry at himself for allowing such feelings. Pony was
a girl, after all, and though Elbryan would openly admit that she was a friend,
such deeper feelings were truly horrifying.
"Elbryan?" she asked. "Was it the song, the Forest Ghost?"
"Never heard it," Elbryan retorted, though when he thought about it, he
had indeed heard the distant piping melody.
"Then what?" Pony pressed.
"Nothing," he replied gruffly. "Come along. The dawn is not long away." He
started up the ridge at a feverish pace then, even scrambling on all fours at
times, crunching through the thick carpet of fallen leaves. Pony paused and
watched him, confused
a at first. Gradually a smile found its way back onto her face, her dimples
showing the slightest blush of red. She suspected she knew the feelings that
Elbryan was fighting, the same feelings she had battled earlier that same year.
Pony had won that battle by accepting, even relishing, those private
feelings, the warmth that washed over her whenever she looked upon Elbryan. She
hoped Elbryan would wage a gallant war now, with an outcome similar to her own.
She caught up to her friend at the top of the ridge. Behind them, Dundalis
sat quiet and dark. All the world seemed still, not a bird calling, not a
whisper of wind. They sat together, yet apart, separated by a couple of feet and
by the wall of Elbryan's confusion. The boy didn't move, hardly seemed to blink,
just sat staring straight ahead at the wide vale before him, though it was too
dark for him to even recognize the place.
Pony, though, was more animated. She let her gaze linger on Elbryan until
the boy became obviously flustered, then she politely looked away, back to the
village -- a single candle was burning in one of the houses -- and back to the
Halo, which was now fast fading in the southern sky. She could still make out
the brighter colors, but that special moment of beauty, of innermost reflection,
had passed. Now she was again Jilseponie, just Jilseponie, sitting on a ridge
with her friend, awaiting the return of her father and the other hunters. And
the dawn was approaching. Pony realized that she could make out more of the
village, could discern the individual houses, even the individual posts of
Bunker Crawyer's corral.
"Today," Elbryan said, unexpectedly, his voice turning her about to study
him. He was at ease again, the uncomfortable feelings tossed out with the
mystery of the night. "They will return this day," he announced with a nod.
Pony grinned warmly, hoping he was right.
They sat in silence as the day grew about them. In the wide vale, the wall
of blackness gave way to the individual dark spots that were the evergreens --
rows and rows of ancient trees, Corona's oldest soldiers, standing proud, though
most were not twice Elbryan's height. The starkness of the scene from this
vantage point, in this mounting light, amazed the companions. The ground about
the trees caught the morning light and held it fast, for the undergrowth was not
dark but was white and thick, a padding of caribou moss. Elbryan loved the stuff
-- all the children did. Every time he gazed upon the white carpet, he wanted to
take off his shoes and pants and run through it barefoot and bare legged, to
feel its softness between his toes and brushing against his shins. In many
places, the caribou moss was even deeper than his knees!
He wanted to do it, as he had so many times in his earlier years, wanted
to cast off his shoes and all his clothes . . .
He remembered his companion, his earlier feelings, and turned away from
Pony, blushing fiercely.
 "If they come in before the sun gets too high, we'll see them a mile
away," Pony remarked. The girl was not looking ahead, though, but at the ridge
to the south behind them. Autumn was well advanced, and all the leaves of the
deciduous trees, particularly the sugar maples, were bright with colors, shining
red and orange and yellow, painting the ridge.
Elbryan was glad that the distracted girl had not noticed his own shade of
red. "Coming down that side of the vale," he agreed sharply, catching Pony's
attention, and pointing to the wide gentle slope of the vale's northeastern face
added, "a mile away!"
Their assessment proved overoptimistic, for the starkness of the scene had
confused their sense of distance. They did indeed spot the returning hunters, to
their complete joy, but not until the group was moving along the bottom of the
bowl-shaped vale, a line of tiny forms far below them.
They watched, chattering wildly, trying to count and to guess who was
leading but getting confused as parts of the line wove in and out of the tree
shadows.
"A shoulder pole!" Elbryan cried out suddenly, spotting the line that
seemed to join two of the men.
"Another!" Pony added happily, and she clapped her hands with glee as more
came into view. The hunters would return with carcasses -- elk, caribou, or
white-tailed deer -- slung on shoulder poles, and it seemed to the watching pair
as if this hunt had been successful indeed! Their patience fast disintegrated;
they leaped out together, running fast down the steeper slope, picking their
angle to intercept the returning troop.
From the ridge top, the vale seemed stark and open, but descending into
it, Elbryan and Pony quickly remembered just how confusing and intimidating a
place it could be. Down among the squat but wide-spreading pines and spruce,
vision in all directions was blocked after just a few feet; the companions
became separated quickly and spent many minutes just talking themselves back
together and then arguing over which direction would lead them to their fathers.
"The sun is in the southeast," Elbryan reminded Pony, squaring his
shoulders as he took command of the situation. The sun had not yet come up high
enough to peer over the rim of the vale, but they could make out its position
easily enough. "The hunters approach from the northeast, so all we have to do is
keep the sun just behind our right shoulders."
It seemed logical enough to Pony, so she. shrugged and let Elbryan lead
and didn't mention to him that if they simply called out loudly, their fathers
would likely hear them and guide them in.
Elbryan picked his way determinedly, weaving about the bushy evergreens,
not even looking back to make sure Pony was keeping up with him. He moved faster
still when he heard the voices of the hunters. His heart pounded when he
recognized his father's deep tones, though he couldn't make out what the man was
saying.
Pony caught up to him, even passed him over that last expanse, leading the
way through the tangle of two wide pines, pushing aside the prickly branches and
bursting into a clearing right beside the returning party.
The startled, almost feral, reaction of the hunters froze Elbryan in his
tracks and sent Pony ducking for cover. Elbryan hardly heard the sharp scolding
his father offered, the boy's eyes basking in the sight, moving from the carcass
of a caribou buck, to a deer, to a line of coneys, to . . .
Elbryan and Jilseponie stood perfectly still, stricken. Their fathers, who
had come forward to meet the impetuous children, to scold them again for being
so far away from Dundalis, let the opportunity pass. The object on the fourth
shoulder pole, each man realized, would be enough to get the lesson across.

The sun was up, the day bright, and the village wide awake by the time
Elbryan and Pony led the hunting party back into Dundalis. Expressions ran from
excitement to awkward fear to blank amazement as the villagers took stock of the
kills, especially the last carcass on the shoulder poles, a smallish humanoid
form.
"A goblin?" asked one woman, bending low to regard the creature's hideous
features: the sloping forehead and the long thin nose, the tiny but perfectly
round eyes, now glazed over, sickly yellow. The creature's ears, pointed at the
top and with a loose flapping, fat lobe at the bottom, stuck out several inches
from its head. The woman shuddered when she considered the mouth, a tangle of
greenish-yellow fangs, all crooked but each angled inward. The chin was narrow,
but the jowls wide with muscle. It wasn't difficult to imagine the power of the
creature's bite or the pain of getting free from those nasty teeth.
"Are they really that color?" asked another woman, and she dared to touch
the creature's skin. "Or did it just turn that way after it died?"
"Yellow and green," an old man answered firmly, though he had not been out
on the hunt. Elbryan watched the wrinkled' and bent elder, Brody Gentle, by
name, though the children usually called him "Body Grabber" in mock horror,
teasing him and then running away. Old Brody was a snarling type, angry at the
world and at his own infirmities, and an easy mark for children, always ready to
give chase and never quick enough to make a catch. Elbryan considered the man's
true name now, for the first time, and nearly laughed aloud at the contradiction
of the surname with Brody's grouchy demeanor.
"Surely is a goblin," Brody continued, obviously enjoying the attention,
"big one, too, and they're yellow and green," he answered the second questioning
woman, "living and dead, though this one's fast turning gray." He snickered as
he finished, a sound of utter contempt that seemed to lend, credence to his
greater knowledge of the goblin race. Goblins were little seen creatures; many
considered them more myth than truth. Even in Dundalis, and in other frontier
villages nestled in the Timberlands on the borders of the deep Wilderlands,
there had been no confirmed sightings of any goblins for longer than the
villagers could remember -- with the apparent exception of Brody Gentle.
"You have seen goblins before?" asked Olwan Wyndon, Elbryan's father, and
his tone and the fact that he crossed his large arms over his chest as he spoke
showed he held many doubts.
Brody Gentle scoffed at him. "Oft have I told the tales!" the old man
fumed.
Olwan Wyndon nodded, not wanting to get Brody into one of his legendary
fits of outrage. Sitting by the hearth in the village's common house, Brody had
recounted endless tales of his youth, of battling goblins, even fomorian giants,
in the first days of Dundalis, staking out the ground for proper folk. Most
listened politely but turned up their eyes and shook their heads whenever Brody
looked away.
"We had the word of a goblin sighting in Weedy Meadow," offered another
man, referring to another village some twenty miles to the west of Dundalis.
"A child's word," Olwan Wyndon promptly reminded them all, quieting
nervous whispers before they could gain any momentum.
"Well, we've much work to do, and you've a tale to tell," Pony's mother
intervened. "Better suited for the common house, after a supper of venison
stew."
0lwan nodded and the crowd gradually dispersed, one person taking a last,
long look at the goblin, which was indeed fast turning gray. Elbryan and Pony
lingered long by the corpse, studying it intently. Pony didn't miss her
companion's derisive snort.
"Small as an eight-year-old," the boy explained, waving a dismissive hand
at the goblin. That was something of an exaggeration, but, indeed, the goblin
wasn't much above four feet tall and couldn't have weighed more than Elbryan's
ninety pounds.
"Perhaps it is a child," Pony offered.
 "You heard Body Grabber," Elbryan countered. He screwed up his face, the
ridiculous nickname sounding foolish in his ears. "He said it was a big one." He
ended with another snort.
"It looks fierce," Pony insisted, bending low to study the creature more
closely. She didn't miss Elbryan's third snort. "Remember the badger?" she asked
quietly, stealing the boy's bluster. "Not a third the size of the goblin."
Elbryan blanched and looked away. Earlier that year, at the beginning of
summer, some of the younger children had snagged a badger in a noose. When they
came into the village with the news, Elbryan, the oldest of their group, had
taken command, leading the way back to the spot. He approached the snared
creature boldly, only to find that it had chewed right through the leather
bindings. When it came around at him, teeth bared, Elbryan had, so the legend --
and among the children, it was indeed a legend -- said, "run away so fast that
he didn't even notice he was running straight up a tree, not even using his
hands to grab a branch."
The rest of the children had fled, as well, but not so far that they could
not witness Elbryan's ultimate humiliation, as the badger, like some vindictive
enemy, had waited at the base of Elbryan's tree, keeping the boy up in the
branches for more than an hour.
Stupid badger, Elbryan thought, and stupid Pony for opening that wound
once again. He walked away without another word.
Pony couldn't sustain her smile as she watched him go, wondering if she
had pushed him a little too hard.

Every villager was in the common house that night, though most had already
heard the tale of the goblin fight by then. The hunting party had come upon a
band of six creatures, or actually both groups had come upon each other,
stepping out of the thick brush onto an open, rocky riverbank simultaneously,
barely twenty paces apart. After a moment of shock, the goblins had thrown their
spears, injuring one man. The ensuing fight had been brief and brutal, with many
nicks and cuts to both sides and even a couple of bites to the humans, before
the goblins, outnumbered two to one, had fled, disappearing into the brush as
suddenly as they had appeared. The only serious wound to either side was the hit
to the slain goblin -- a spear thrust that had punctured the creature's lung. It
had tried to flee with its companions but fell short of the brush for lack of
breath and died soon after.
Olwan Wyndon told the tale again in full to the gathering, trying hard not
to embellish it. "We spent three days looking but found no more sign of the
other goblins," he finished.
Immediately a pair of mugs came up into the air from the side of the room.
"To Shane McMichael!" the two mug holders bellowed together. "Goblinslayer!"
The cheer went up, and Shane McMichael, a quiet, slender young man just a
few years older than Elbryan, reluctantly came forward to stand beside Olwan in
front of the blazing hearth: With much prodding, the man was prompted to tell of
the fight, of the cunning twist and parry and the straightforward thrust that
had come too soon for the goblin to completely dodge.
Elbryan savored every word, envisioning the battle clearly. How he envied
Shane!
Afterward, the conversation turned into an exchange of what other people
had recently seen, of the report of a goblin sighting in Weedy Meadow, and even
a few wild tales from Dundalis folk claiming that they had noticed some huge
tracks but just hadn't said anything about it. Elbryan at first listened
intently to every word but, gradually taking the cue from his father's posture,
came to understand that most of the talk was no more than individual efforts to
grab a bit of attention. It surprised Elbryan that adults would act that way,
especially considering the gravity of the situation.
 Next came a discussion, led by Brody Gentle, of goblinkind in general,
from the numerous small goblins to the rare and dangerous disfigured fomorian
giants. Brody spoke with an air of expertise, but few in the room hung on his
every word. Even young Elbryan soon came to realize that the old man knew little
more than anyone else concerning goblins, and Elbryan doubted that Brody had
ever seen a fomorian giant. Elbryan looked at Pony, who seemed to be growing
quite bored by it all, and motioned to the door.
She was out into the night before he got out of his chair.
"Bluster," Elbryan insisted, joining her. The night was chill, and so the
boy moved close to Pony, sharing their warmth.
"But we cannot deny the goblin," Pony replied, motioning to the shed where
the creature had been placed. "Your father's tale was real enough."
"I meant Brody--"
"I know what you meant," said Pony, "and I do not believe him either --
not completely."
Elbryan's surprise at her qualification of the remark reflected clearly on
his face.
"There are goblins," Pony explained. "We know that well enough. So perhaps
those who first came to the edge of the Wilderlands to settle Dundalis did have
a few fights on their hands."
"Fomorians?" Elbryan asked skeptically.
Pony shrugged, not willing to discount the possibility of giants, not
after viewing a dead goblin.
Elbryan conceded the point, though he still thought Brody Gentle more
bluster than truth. He couldn't hold that thought, though, or any other negative
feelings, when Jilseponie turned to look him directly in the eye, when she, her
face only a few inches from his own, locked his olive green eyes with her stare.
Elbryan found his breath hard to come by. Pony was close -- too close --
and she wasn't backing away!
And she was coming closer, Elbryan realized, her head slowly drifting
toward his, her lips, so soft, in line with his! Panic hit him, wrestling hard
with a jumble of other emotions that Elbryan did not understand. A part of him
wanted to turn away, but another part, a larger and surprising part, would not
let him move.
The door to the common house opened with a crash, and both Pony and
Elbryan immediately spun away from each other.
The younger children came out in a mob, swarming around the older pair.
"What are we going to do?" one of them asked.
Elbryan and Pony exchanged curious looks.
"We must be ready for when the goblins come back," another boy remarked.
"The goblins were never here," Pony interjected.
"But they will be!" claimed the boy. "Kristeena says so."
All eyes turned to Kristeena, a girl of ten who always seemed to be
staring at Elbryan. "Goblins always come back for their dead," she explained
eagerly.
"How do you know that?" Elbryan asked doubtfully, and his tone seemed to
hurt the girl.
She looked. down and kicked the dirt with one foot. "My grandmother
knows," she answered, her voice suddenly sheepish, and Elbryan felt a fool for
making her so uncomfortable. All the gang was quiet, hanging on Elbryan's every
word.
Pony nudged him hard. Pony had told him many times that Kristeena was
sweet for him, and the older girl, not viewing a ten-year-old as competition,
had been charmed by the thought.
"She probably does know," Elbryan said, and Kristeena looked up, suddenly
beaming. "And it sounds right." He turned to the shed, and all the younger
children flowed about him, following his gaze.
 "And if the goblins do come back, we must be ready," Elbryan decided. He
looked at Pony and winked, and was surprised when she returned the gesture with
a serious frown.
Perhaps this was more than a game.

CHAPTER 2
True Believer

Twenty-five stood in a line, cloaked in thick brown robes with voluminous

sleeves and large hoods that were pulled low to hide their faces. Quiet and
humble, they kept their heads bowed, their shoulders stooped, and their hands
folded before them, though not a digit showed from beneath the folds of cloth,
not a flash of flesh in the whole of the line.
"Piety, dignity, poverty," the old father abbot, Dalebert Markwart,
intoned in his nasal voice. He stood alone on the balcony above the main
entrance of St.-Mere-Abelle, the most prominent monastery in all the kingdom of
Honce-the-Bear, in the northern temperate zone of Corona. Intertwined with the
rocky cliffs of the southeastern coast, St.-Mere-Abelle had stood solemn and
dark for nearly a millennium, with each generation of monks adding their toil
and craftsmanship to the already huge structure. Its gray rock walls seemed to
grow right from the solid stone, an extension of the earth's power. Squat towers
anchored every turn in the wall; narrow windows showed that the place was built
for somber reflection and defense. The visible parts of the monastery were
impressive; the sea wall alone rose and melted back into the cliff face for more
than a mile. But the bulk of the place could not be seen from beyond the walls;
it was buried under the ground, in tunnels strong and square, in vast
underground chambers -- many smoky from the constant torchlight, others
brightened by ways magical. Seven hundred monks lived here and another two
hundred servants, many of them never leaving the place except to go on short
visits, usually to market in the village of St.-Mere-Abelle, some three miles
inland.
The new class of twenty-five stood one behind the other. As they were
positioned according to height, Avelyn Desbris, tall and large-boned, was near
the back, with twenty-two before him and only two behind. He could barely hear
the Abbot above the constant groan of the wind, weaving always through the many
rocks. But Avelyn hardly cared. For the majority of his twenty years, the young
man had dreamed of this day, had set his sights on the Order of St.-Mere-Abelle
as surely as any general would focus on his next conquest. Eight years of formal
study, eight years of grueling testing, had brought Avelyn to this point, one of
twenty-five remaining of the two thousand twelve-year-olds who had begun the
process, each desperately vying to gain admittance in this class of God's Year
816.
Avelyn dared to peek out from under his hood at the handful of spectators
lining the road before the monastery's. front gates. His mother, Annalisa, and
father, Jayson, were among that small group, though his mother had taken ill and
would not likely make it back to their home in the village of Youmaneff, some
three hundred miles from the coast. Avelyn knew with near certainty that this
would be the last time he saw her, and likely the last time he'd see his father,
as well. Avelyn was the youngest of ten, and his parents had been well into
their forties when he was born. His next youngest sibling was seven years his
senior, and so he wasn't really close to any of them. By the time Avelyn was old
enough to understand the concept of family, half the children had already moved
out of the family house.
His life had been good, though, and he had been close to his parents, more
so than any of his brothers or sisters had been. The bond had been particularly
strong with Annalisa, a humble and spiritual woman, who had encouraged her
youngest child to follow the path of God from his earliest recollections.
Avelyn dropped his gaze once more, fearful of discipline should he be
caught peeking out from under his hood. Rumors hinted that students of St.-Mere-
Abelle had been dismissed for less. He pictured his mother on that day many
years before when he had announced that he would enter St.-Mere-Abelle: the
tears that had come to her; the smile, gentle, even divine. That image, that
confirmation, was burned into Avelyn's thoughts as clearly as if it had been
painted and magically illuminated on the inside of his eyelids. How much younger
and more vibrant Annalisa had seemed! The last few years had been hard on her,
one illness after another. She was determined to see this day, though, and
Avelyn understood that with its passing, with his entering St.-Mere-Abelle, the
woman would no longer fight against mortality.
It was all right, to Avelyn and to Annalisa. Her goals had been met, her
life lived in the spirit of generosity. Avelyn knew he would cry when word
reached him of her passing, but he knew, too, that his tears would be selfish --
tears for himself and his loss, and not for Annalisa, whom he knew would be in a
better place.
A grinding sound, the great gates sliding open, brought the young man from
his contemplations.
"Do you willingly enter the service of God?" Father Abbot Dalebert
Markwart asked.
The twenty-five responded with a unified "Yes, say I!"
"Show then your desire," the Father Abbot demanded. "Pass ye the Gauntlet
of Willing Suffering!"
The line shuffled forward. "My God, our God, one God," they chanted, and
they lifted their voices even higher when the first of their ranks entered the
gauntlet, stepping between two lines of monks, those who remained of the classes
of the previous two years, all armed with heavy wooden paddles.
Avelyn heard the slaps of wood, the unintentional groans, even an
occasional cry from the younger students near the front. He fell deeper within
himself, chanted with all his strength, and listened to his own words, grabbing
at his faith and building with it a wall of denial. So strong was he in
meditation that he did not even feel the first few blows, and those that slapped
against him afterward seemed a minor thing, a momentary pain, lost in the
ultimate sweetness that awaited him. All his life, he had wanted to live in
service to God; all his life he had dreamed of this day.
Now was his time, his day. He came through the gauntlet without uttering a
single sound beyond the range of his controlled, even-toned chant.
That fact was not lost on Father Abbot Markwart, nor on any of the other
monks watching the initiation of God's Year 816. None of the others in Avelyn's
line could make such a claim; not one in several years had walked the Gauntlet
of Willing Suffering with so minimal complaint.

The huge stone gates of St.-Mere-Abelle slammed shut with a resounding

crash that jolted Annalisa Desbris violently. Her husband held her tight then,
understanding her pain, both physical and emotional.
Annalisa knew, as. Avelyn had known, that she would never see her son in
this world again. She had given him over to the service of God, to her ultimate
joy, but still, the very real human pain of final parting tugged at her weak
heart, stole the strength from her tiny arms and legs.
Jayson supported her, always. He, too, had tears in his eyes, but unlike
Annalisa's, which were of joy, Jayson's tears came from a mix of emotions,
ranging from simple sadness to anger. He had never spoken openly against
Avelyn's decision, but privately the pragmatic man had wondered if his son
wasn't merely throwing his life away.
 He couldn't say that to frail Annalisa, he knew. A simple word could break
her. Jayson only hoped that he could somehow get her home, into her own bed,
before she died.

Thoughts of his parents could not hold Avelyn's attention as the group
crossed the windblown courtyard and entered the grand entrance hall of St.-Mere-
Abelle. Now, the young man did utter an unintended sound, a gasp of disbelief
and delight.
The place was not bright, having only a handful of tiny windows set high
up on the tall walls. Torches burned at regular intervals, and the massive beams
that supported the hall's ceiling seemed to dance in their light. Avelyn had
never seen a place so huge, could not comprehend the effort that had been
expended to put this hall together. His own village of Youmaneff would fit
inside this one hall, with room left over to stable the horses!
The tapestries that lined the place were no less magnificent and
intriguing, woven into scenes that held a million details in every square foot -
- sights within sights, subtle lines and smaller images -- that caught Avelyn's
eyes and his curiosity and would not let them go. The tapestries covered the
walls almost completely, allowing for windows and for racked displays of shining
weapons: swords and spears, great axes, long daggers, and a myriad of pole arms
with hooked blades and prodding tips that Avelyn did not know. Suits of armor of
various designs stood as silent sentinels, every type from the overlapping
wooden plates of the ancient Behrenese to the strong metal-plate mail designed
for Honce-the-Bear's Allheart Brigade, the personal guards of the King --
whoever that might be at the moment. Along one wall stood a gigantic statue,
fifteen feet or more, dressed in a heavy leather jacket, trimmed in fur and set
with spiked metal plates and heavy iron rings. A fomorian, Avelyn realized with
a very visible shudder, in the typical battle dress of its warlike race. Beside
it, dramatically, were two tiny figures, one just over half Avelyn's height, the
other a bit taller, but slender and lithe. The shorter of the pair wore a light
leather tunic and arm shields, metal sleeves hooked over the figure's thumbs and
running from wrists to elbow. The red beret gave the figure's identity away. It
was a powrie mannikin, Avelyn realized. The cruel dwarflike powries were also
called "bloody caps" for their gruesome habit of dipping their berets, enchanted
pieces made of specially prepared human skin, in their victims' blood until the
cap took on -- and kept -- a shining red hue.
The statue beside the powrie, sporting a pair of nearly translucent wings,
had to be a representation of an elf, the mysterious Touel'alfar. Its limbs were
slender and long and its armor a silver shining coat of fine interlocking links.
Avelyn wanted to go closer to it to study the stern facial features and the
incredible craftsmanship of the armor. That thought, and the potential
punishment it might bring, reminded the young man of where he was and that many
seconds, minutes perhaps, had slipped past him unnoticed. He blushed deeply and
lowered his head, taking a quick glance all around. He calmed quickly, though,
seeing that all of his classmates were similarly entranced and that the Father
Abbot and the other ranking monks seemed not to care.
The initiates were supposed to be overwhelmed, Avelyn suddenly realized,
and he looked again around the room, this time more openly, nodding as he began
to understand the true. nature of the place. The Order of St.-Mere-Abelle was
noted not just for its pious and humble priests but also for their long
reputation as fierce warriors. The eight years of Avelyn's' pretraining had
included only minor instruction in the martial arts, but he had suspected that
the physical qualifications of the brotherhood, the ability to fight, would
become more prominent once inside the monastery.
To Avelyn, it was more of a distraction than anything else. All that the
gentle and idealistic young man wanted was to serve God, to foster peace, to
heal, and to comfort. To Avelyn Desbris, nothing in all the world, not the
treasures of a dragon's hoard, nor the powers of a king, could outweigh that
accomplishment.
Now he was on the other side of the great stone gates of St.-Mere-Abelle.
Now he had his chance.
So he believed.

CHAPTER 3
The Lingering Kiss

Things quieted quickly in Dundalis. As the days after the patrol's return
stretched out into an uneventful week, and then a second, thoughts of the slain
goblin took second place to the very real threat of winter's onset. There was
much to be done: the last harvesting, preparing the meat, patching holes in the
cottages, and cleaning the chimneys. Every passing day, danger from the goblins
seemed more and more remote; every passing day, fewer and fewer men and women
went out of the town to walk a patrol.
Elbryan and his friends, some as young as six or seven, saw their chance
unfolding. For the adults, the specter of the goblins brought a sobering
wariness and then a troublesome distraction. For the younger villagers, whose
imaginations were far livelier and whose sense of adventure hadn't yet been
tempered by any real loss, thoughts of goblin raids brought excitement, a call
to arms, a time for heroes. Elbryan and his friends had offered to walk patrols
since the first day of the hunting party's return. Each morning, they approached
the village leaders, and each morning, they were politely refused and quickly
put to some more mundane task. Even Elbryan, who would be entering the realm of
adults that coming spring, had spent almost all the previous week with his head
up a dirty chimney.
But the young man held faith and passed his hopes down the line. The
adults were tiring of their patrols, he knew, and were growing more and more
confident that the goblin incident was a chance thing -- a single, unfortunate
meeting -- and that those creatures which had been chased away would not return
to the site of the battle, let alone try to track the humans back to their
village, some thirty miles away.
Now, with two calm weeks behind them and no further sightings except for a
few wild rumors that were discounted by even the most cautious of Dundalis'
folk, Elbryan recognized the lessening of resistance in his father's voice. He
was not surprised that morning when Olwan, instead of shaking his head, bent low
and sketched out in the dirt a rough map of the area, explaining to his son
where he and his friends should be positioned.
Elbryan was surprised, though, and pleasantly so, when Olwan then
presented him with the family sword, a short, thick blade of two-foot length. It
wasn't an impressive weapon -- its blade showed many nicks and more than a
little rust -- but it was one of the few real swords in the village. "Make
certain that every one of your group is well armed," Olwan said seriously. "And
make sure that each knows the value, and the danger, of his or her weapon."
Olwan knew what this meant to his son, and if he had smiled or let on in
any way that the patrols were no longer really necessary, he would have stolen
something from Elbryan, a measure of importance that the young man desperately
needed to feel.
"Do you think it is wise to let the children go out with weapons?" Shane
McMichael asked Olwan, coming up to the large man soon after Elbryan had run
off. "Or to let them go out at all?"
Olwan snorted and shrugged his muscular shoulders. "We cannot spare the
men and women," he replied, "and there is the other patrol in the vale, the most
likely route for our enemies to take, should they come." Olwan gave another
snort, a helpless sound that surprised McMichael, who had always known Olwan as
the coolest and most confident head in all the village.
"Besides," Olwan went on, "if the goblins or fomorians get close enough to
Dundalis for my son and his friends to see, they will be as well off out in the
woods as in the village."
Shane McMichael did not argue the point, though the weight of it grew
steadily on his shoulders. Since Honce-the-Bear had been at peace for many years
-- and goblins and evil giants receding from the thoughts of most people to
become little more than fireside tales -- Dundalis had not been built for
defense. The village was not even walled, as earlier settlements near the
Wilderlands had been, and the folk were not well armed. The hunting party of
twelve had carried with them more than half the total real weapons of the
hundred folk of Dundalis. Olwan was right, Shane McMichael knew, and he
shuddered with the thought; if the goblins got close enough for Elbryan and the
others to spot them, then all the village would be in danger.
Olwan started away, and McMichael calmed and moved to follow. He really
didn't think any goblins would come; none in the village except for pessimistic
old Brody Gentle spoke of such darkness.
The patrols began that day, with a score and five youngsters walking the
rim of the bowl-shaped vale that held Dundalis. There was one other patrol, a
handful of older teenagers, venturing further out, down among the pines and
fluffy caribou moss to the northeast. Each of this group nodded respectfully at
his younger counterparts as he passed them on the rim; some mentioned that
Elbryan's patrols would serve as their vital liaison with the village proper.
After that exchange of compliments, even the passing of endless uneventful hours
could not dampen the thrill for the youngsters. Elbryan and his friends were not
being left out this time, were not being treated as mere children.
As each day slipped past -- the weather growing a bit colder, the wind
shifting more to the north -- the twenty-five in Elbryan's group perfected their
patrol routes. Elbryan split them into four
teams of five and one of three, which would move from group to group gathering
information, while he and Pony served as anchor to them all, holding a position
along the highest ridge directly
north of Dundalis, overlooking the valley of evergreens and caribou moss. There
were several complaints about this arrangement at first, mostly from the older
boys who thought that they
should serve as Elbryan's second. Some even resorted to teasing Elbryan about
his growing relationship with Pony, prompting him to "ride the Pony," and other
such crudities.
Elbryan took it all in stride, with the exception of any insults to Pony,
which he promptly informed the teasers would bring them serious and painful
retaliation. He didn't care about their teasing him though, having at last
admitted, to himself and openly, that Pony was his best and most-trusted friend.
"Let the children have their fun," Elbryan, coming into manhood, whispered
to Pony as the groups split up.
When he wasn't looking her way, when he had moved off to set up a
windbreak of dead wood, Pony regarded him knowingly, a warm smile spreading over
her face.
* * *
Something else watched the young man from a perch in one of the thicker
pines on the ridge. It moved nimbly from branch to branch, crossing over to
nearby trees with barely a whisper. It shadowed Elbryan's every move, studying
the young leader intently.
To Pony and Elbryan, alert as they were, the creature was invisible and
unnoticed. Even if they had looked intently the creature's way, its movements
were so fluid and graceful -- and always under the cover of pine boughs -- that
they would have considered the sway of the branches no more than the movement of
the wind or a gray squirrel, perhaps.

Another week passed by uneventfully. Work in the village was at full pace,
readying for winter. On the ridge and in the vale beyond, the primary enemy
became boredom. Elbryan lost half a dozen of his patrol at the beginning of that
second week, the youths explaining that their parents needed them about the
house and would not let them go out. Elbryan did not miss that every one of
those "soldiers" seemed grateful to be relieved of the dull patrols.
Elbryan continued his diligent work, though, reorganizing the routes to
cover more ground since he was down to three teams of five, with a couple of
messengers.
"We'll lose Shamus tomorrow," Pony said as they sat side by side in a
hollow on the high ridge, sheltered from the chill wind by a pair of large
pines. The day was late, and gray clouds were rolling in to hide the afternoon
sun. "His mother told me this morning this would be his last day out."
Elbryan prodded the ground with the tip of his sword. "His patrol group
goes to four, then," he said matter-of-factly.
Pony recognized the frustration in his voice, though he did well to hide
it. Elbryan was watching his first command crumbling about him, his soldiers
being taken away so that they could help patch roofs or shore up barns. Pony
sympathized with the young man, but logically, this was the best scenario they
could have hoped for.
"They are being called back home because no enemy has come," she gently
reminded him. "Better this than for your patrol to have been truly necessary."
Elbryan looked at her, little luster showing in his normally bright green
eyes.
"Or maybe we were necessary," Pony quickly added, trying to salvage some
measure of the young man's pride. "How do we know that goblins have not ventured
near Dundalis?"
Elbryan cocked his head and ran a hand through his thick layers of
straight, light brown hair.
"Perhaps their scouts did come near us," Pony went on. "Perhaps they saw
our patrols and realized they would not have an easy time of it against the
village."
"We are just children," Elbryan said disgustedly.
Pony shook her head. "And all but the smallest of our group is larger than
a goblin," she replied without hesitation, and that truth seemed to lend some
credence to her reasoning. "Is not the best army the one so strong that enemies
will not dare attack?"
Elbryan didn't answer, but that familiar sparkle fit up his eyes. He
turned back to regard the ground in front of him, and the wild design he was
cutting with the sword tip.
Pony smiled warmly, feeling that she had done well. It pleased her greatly
to help out Elbryan, to guard his emotions. She didn't really believe goblins
had come near enough to see the patrols, and neither did Elbryan, but at least
this way he could hold out some reason to believe his first real effort at
something important by adult standards had not been in vain. The simple fact
that they could not be absolutely certain offered Elbryan all the encouragement
he needed.
Pony dared to reach out then; the connection was too strong to let the
moment pass. She cupped Elbryan's chin in one hand and gently turned him back to
face her.
"You have done a wonderful job out here," she said softly.
"Not alone," he started to reply, but she stopped him by putting a finger
of her free hand across his lips. Only then did Elbryan realize how close they
were, their faces barely two
inches apart. He felt warm suddenly, a bit dizzy, a bit frightened.
Pony drifted closer. She kissed him! Full on the lips! Elbryan was
terrified and thrilled all at once. He thought he should pull away, spit on the
ground, and yell "girl poison!" as was the expected response, as had been his
response all the other times Pony, or any of the other girls, had tried to kiss
him.
He didn't want to do that; the last notion in his mind was to pull away.
He realized then that it had been a long, long time since Pony had tried to kiss
him -- at least a year. Had she feared
his reaction? Had she known he would have spit and yelled out "girl poison," a
chant that would have been taken up by every boy in the village?
Or had she known he wasn't ready, until now, to be kissed? That was it,
the young man decided as the gentle kiss, their closed mouths barely touching,
lingered on and on. Pony knew him so very well, better than he knew himself.
Their last few days together, alone for four of every five hours, had brought
them even closer.
And now this. Elbryan didn't want it to end. He shifted in his seat, first
lifted the short sword, then, realizing that it would be awkward, perhaps even
dangerous, dropped it to the ground. He dared to put his arms around Pony's
back, dared to pull her closer, feeling the strangely interesting curves and
bumps of her body against his own as they came together. He fought a fit of
panic -- not knowing what he should do, where he should move his hands, or if he
should move his hands at all.
All Elbryan knew was that he didn't want the kiss to end, that he wanted
something more, though he wasn't really sure what that might be. He wanted to be
closer to Pony, physically and emotionally. This was his Pony, his dearest
friend, the girl -- no, the young woman -- whom he had grown to love. He would
pass into manhood that spring, Pony into womanhood the following autumn, and
soon after, he would ask for Pony's hand . . .
That notion brought fear and Elbryan tried to pull away -- and did break
the hold long enough to catch his breath. Again, the fears passed, lost in a
swirl of warmth as he looked at Pony's shining blue eyes, at her smile, as
genuine and joyful as anything Elbryan had ever seen. She hardly had to nudge
him to get him to kiss her again, and they settled even more comfortably
together.
The kiss shifted, from curiosity to urgency, then back to gentleness.
Their clothes ruffled and seemed more of an obstacle than a necessity. Though
the air was chill, Elbryan had the feeling he would be warmer without them. His
hands did move now, as he lost his fear of touching Pony. He caressed her neck,
ran his hand down her side and along the outside of her strong leg. He was
shocked as her mouth opened a little bit, as he felt her tongue against his
lips, so soft and inviting.
The moment, this most precious moment in all of Elbryan's young life . . .
And then suddenly, it was gone, destroyed by a horrified, and horrifying,
scream. The couple jumped apart and to their feet, staring wide-eyed down the
long slope to the village, at the swarming forms, at the large plume of smoke --
too large to come from any chimney! -- rising from one of the houses.
The goblins had come.

Hundreds of miles away, in a windswept, foreboding -- land called the

Barbacan, in a deep cave in a mountain called Aida, the dactyl basked in the
sensation of rear. The demon creature could feel the screams of those dying in
Dundalis, though it had no idea where the battle was being waged. This was an
action of a rogue goblin chieftain, perhaps, or one of the many powrie raiding
parties, acting on their own initiative, bringing misery to the wretched humans.
The dactyl could not take direct credit, but that mattered little. It had
awakened, darkness rising, and already its influence was spreading throughout
Corona. Already the goblins, the powries, or one of the other races the demon
would claim as minions had felt that awakening and had been given the courage to
act.
The creature flexed its great wings and settled back in the throne it had
shaped from the obsidian that had formerly served as its tomb. Yes, the dark
vibrations were running strong through the stone. The sensation of war, of human
agony.
It was good to be awake.

CHAPTER 4
The Death of Dundalis

Elbryan and Pony were stunned and terrified for many seconds. It was too unreal,
too beyond their experience and expectations. Images assaulted them, mingling
with imagined scenes even more horrifying, and amid all of it welled utter
denial, the hope against obvious reality that this simply could not be
happening.
Jilseponie moved first, a single, tiny step, her arm reaching out
helplessly. That almost involuntary motion seemed to break her trance and she
let out a shriek for her mother and ran full out for home.
Elbryan thought to call out for her, but indecision held his voice and
kept him from immediately following. What should he do? What were his
responsibilities?
A warrior would know these things!
With great effort, Elbryan tore his gaze from the dreadful spectacle below
and glanced all around. He should organize his friends -- yes, that was the
course, he decided. He would gather together his scouts, perhaps even call in
the older scouts from the vale, and charge down into Dundalis in tight
formation, anchoring the defense.
But time was against him. He glanced about again, turned to the evergreen
and caribou moss valley, and started to call out, thinking to bring in the
patrol of older men.
Elbryan fell back behind the twin pines, catching the shout in his throat,
gasping for breath. Just over the ridge, facing away from him, he saw the nearly
bald head, the pointed ears, the chalky yellow skin of an enemy. With trembling
fingers, Elbryan retrieved his short sword, and then he sank even deeper into
the hollow, paralyzed with terror.
* * *
Pony wasn't armed, having left her club back at the ridge. She didn't
care, for she wasn't really running into battle.
The girl was running to find her mother and father, to feel their
comforting hugs, to hear her mother telling her that everything would be all
right. She wanted to be a little girl again, wrapped tight in her bedsheets, and
tighter in Mother's embrace, waking from a nightmare.
This time, though, she was awake. This time, the screams were real.
Pony ran on desperately, blinded by tears. She stumbled to the base of
what she thought was a tree, then nearly fainted as it shifted suddenly, as the
fomorian giant, huge club in hand, took a long step away from her.
If she had had any breath in her lungs, she would have screamed, and if
she had screamed, the giant would have noticed her and squashed her where she
stood.
But its focus was the village and not some insignificant little girl, and
in a few loping strides it left Pony far behind. She scrambled back to her feet,
picked up a couple of rocks of a good size for throwing, and ran on, taking a
course that would parallel, but not too closely, the giant: Now, as she entered
the area of battle, as she saw the confusion, the fierce fighting, the dead
bodies on the road, she was no more a little girl. Now she remembered her
training, forced herself to think clearly and concisely. Goblins swarmed
everywhere, and Pony spotted at least two other giants, fifteen feet tall and
perhaps a thousand pounds of chiseled muscle. Her friends and family could not
win! That logical, adult part of Pony -- the part that knew that the time of
fending off nightmares with bedsheets was long past -- told her without doubt
that Dundalis could not survive.
"Plan B," she whispered aloud, using the words to steady her thinking. The
rules of survival, taught to every child in Wilderlands settlements, declared
that the first priority in any catastrophe was to save the village. If that
failed, the next task was to save as many individuals as possible. Plan B.
Pony picked her way around the back of the nearest houses, moving in and
out of the shadows. She peeked around the corner and stood transfixed.
On the main road of Dundalis, just on the other side of this house, a
fierce battle raged. Pony saw Olwan Wyndon first, standing tall in the middle of
the human line, calling out commands, forming the group of twenty men and women
into a tight circle as enemies came at them from nearly every direction. Pony's
first instincts were to try and join that battle group, but she quickly surmised
that she would never get in. She clenched her fist hopefully as Olwan Wyndon
smashed a goblin's head, dropping the wretch to the dirt.
Then she held her breath as she noticed the man behind Olwan, parrying
wildly as two goblins prodded at him with sharp spears.
Her father.

Elbryan held his breath, gasped once, then held it again. He didn't know
what to do, then cursed himself silently for what he had already done!
In the hollow of the twin pines, he had lost sight of his enemy -- the
first, and often fatal, mistake.
Now he had to work hard to deny his terror, had to climb above the emotion
and the physical barrier and remember the many lessons his father had given him.
A warrior knows his enemy, locates his enemy, and watches its every move.
Silently mouthing that litany, Elbryan inched his face toward the edge of the
pine. He hesitated momentarily at the very last instant, certain the goblin was
just on the other side, weapon poised to smash him as soon as he peeked around.
A warrior knows his enemy . . .
A sudden shift brought the field beyond the pines back into view, and
Elbryan nearly collapsed with relief when he saw the goblin had not moved and
was still facing away from him, staring into the northern valley. That relief
fast transformed into a sinking feeling as Elbryan realized the meaning of this
creature's positioning. The patrol in the valley had been spotted perhaps had
even been already engaged, and this goblin had been set as sentry, watching for
any other potential human reinforcements while its companions sacked the
village.
That thought sparked anger in the young man, enough to overcome his fear.
He clenched more tightly. his short sword and slowly brought one leg up under
him.
Without hesitation, for if he paused, he knew his courage surely would
falter, Elbryan slipped out from behind the protection of the tree: Half
walking, half crawling, he moved closer to the goblin, quickly covering a third
of the distance.
Then he wanted to turn back, to run into the hollow and cover his face.
The sounds behind him, from his home, bolstered him, as did the smell of burning
wood carried by the wind up to the ridge. With a grimace of determination,
Elbryan halved the distance to his foe. No turning back now. He scanned the
area, and, as soon as he was confident that this creature was alone, he stood up
and rushed out.
 Five running strides brought him to the goblin, who didn't hear his
approach until the last second. Even as the goblin began to turn, Elbryan's
sword came down hard on its head.
The sword bounced out wide. Elbryan was surprised by the force of the
impact and that his sword had not cut into the goblin's skull. He thought for
one terrible moment he hadn't hit the thing hard enough, that it would turn and
skewer him with its crude spear. Desperately, the young man scrambled to the
side, trying to ready a defense.
The goblin staggered weirdly, dropped its weapon, and fell to its knees.
Its head lolled from side to side. Elbryan saw the bright red gash, the white of
split bone, the grayish brain. The goblin stopped moving. Its chin came to rest
on its chest, and it held the kneeling pose, quite dead.
Dead.
Elbryan felt his guts churning and labored for his breath. The weight of
his first kill descended upon him, bowing his shoulders, nearly driving him to
his knees. Again it was the smell of his burning village that cleared his head.
He had no time now to ponder, and any sympathetic notions that he might have
captured the goblin instead of killing it seemed perfectly ridiculous.
He looked ahead at the evergreen vale and noted to his dismay that a fight
was going on down there. Then he looked back at the larger battle for Dundalis.
To where his parents were fighting, to where Pony had run.
"Pony," the desperate young man whispered aloud, and before Elbryan even
consciously knew what he was doing, he saw the trees going past him in a blur as
he sprinted down the slope toward Dundalis.

Pony made her way around the house, inching toward the battle, wondering
how she might get past the ring of goblins to stand beside her father. A cry of
agony within the house froze her in place, and she leaned heavily on the frame
for support. She took a moment to consider where she was, whose house this was,
and she stifled a sob.
"No time for that," she scolded herself, and she focused on the battle
raging on the road. Again her shoulders sagged, for though many goblins lay dead
or dying on the bloodied ground about the ring of desperate fighters, several
humans were down as well. And the goblin ranks, for all the carnage, remained
deep, and seemed undiminished.
Above it all stood Olwan, proud and strong and unshakable. He clobbered
yet another goblin, bashing in its ugly skull, then raised his arm and called
out, trying to rally the others. Pony blinked curiously, for Olwan's arm did not
come down, seemed to be going up, up, up. She saw the look of horror and pain
that came over the, man, then looked higher, past his stretched shoulder, his
elbow . . .
The giant's hand covered the tall man's entire forearm. Blocked by the
wall of the house, Pony couldn't follow the man's ascent. She wanted to yell out
for someone to help doomed Olwan, wanted to scream simply for the sake of
screaming.
And then Olwan came flying back into sight, falling in a broken heap on
the road right in the midst of the valiant fighters. Their ranks broke apart.
They ran every which way, most getting no more than a couple of strides before
being buried under a wave of swarming goblins. Pony lost sight of her father
immediately, mercifully. She tried to sort out the mob, saw another person --
the woman who had taught her to read and write -- get pulled down to the ground,
saw the goblin spear fast following. And then Pony turned away, stumbling to the
back of the house, holding her churning stomach.
There were no lines of defense anymore, no organized pockets of
resistance. Everything was confusion, screams and cries of pain. Pony didn't
know where to turn, where to run. She saw the image of dead Olwan again, and the
last glimpse of her father.
 She turned back toward the road, hoping that her dad would come for her,
would somehow rush out of the jumble and scoop her away from the danger, would
make everything better, as he'd always done.
As if in a grotesque mockery of that hope, a goblin marched around that
corner, bearing down on the girl. Pony let out a cry, hurled one of her stones
at the creature, and ran off.

Anger held her in place just around the back of the house. She stopped and
braced herself, measuring the goblin's footsteps. As it rounded the corner, the
girl snapped back her elbow with all her strength, catching the charging
creature right under the chin.
Pony spun and jumped on it, flailing wildly with both fists, kicking and
kneeing viciously. Stronger than its little body would indicate, the goblin
finally pushed her aside and turned its spear.

"Elbryan!"
The call brought the sprinting lad to a skidding halt. He caught the trunk
of a young maple and swung about it, turning in the direction of the voice.
Carley dan Aubrey, one of the younger scouts, staggered toward him, his
face ashen, both hands clenched firmly to his right side at his waist. Elbryan
saw the dark stain near those hands.
"Elbryan!" the nine-year-old boy called again, stumbling forward. Elbryan
ran out to meet him, caught him as he fell.
The older boy moved quickly to inspect the wound, forcing Carley's hands
away. Elbryan grimaced, and Carley whimpered and nearly vomited, when Elbryan's
hand brushed against the broken tip of a spear jutting from Carley's side.
Elbryan pulled back his trembling hand, staring wide-eyed at the bright
blood that now covered it. Carley clutched desperately at the wound again, but
he could not hope to stem the blood.
Elbryan forced himself to remain steady, to think clearly. He had to get
his own shirt off and use it to somehow wrap the wound. And quickly! He tore off
his overcoat and pulled open his leather vest, quickly unbuttoning the sleeves
of his white shirt. Then he saw the goblin, coming fast, half a spear in its
hands. It raised the shaft like a club, bearing down on him.
Elbryan grabbed for his short sword, tried to bring it up in front of him,
and fell back as the goblin dove upon him. They came together hard, Elbryan
going flat out on his back.
Down they rolled together. Elbryan's sword was up against the creature's
side, had cut in a bit, but the angle was wrong, and the goblin's grip
surprisingly strong, preventing the boy from driving the weapon home.
Over and over they rolled, tumbling down the slope, punching and
thrashing. The ugly goblin face, all twisted teeth and long pointy nose, was
barely inches from Elbryan's face, and closer still when the creature began to
butt the boy. Elbryan felt his nose crack, felt the warmth of his blood running.
He struggled harder, but the goblin would not let him drive his sword home.
Elbryan tugged more fiercely with his other hand instead, increasing the
pace of the roll. He caught his ankles on a tree trunk but kicked off, not
daring to stop, and the goblin came right over him. Still the creature held on
stubbornly, pulling Elbryan over, and they began to roll sidelong again, heads
to feet. On the first roll, Elbryan saw his new advantage, and on the second the
young man poked the elbow of his sword arm out so it hit the ground and was
braced.
When the goblin came over, its own weight forced it down on Elbryan's
sword.
The creature went berserk, kicking and thrashing, flopping like a landed
fish. Elbryan at first tried to defend himself but when that seemed futile, went
on the offensive instead, brutally turning and twisting his blade.
 The pair rolled hard into the trunk of another tree, and the goblin
abruptly stopped its thrashing. Elbryan, dazed, his breath blasted away, nearly
fainted. His thoughts came back in a terrifying rush and he tore free his sword
and began hacking wildly, cutting the goblin again and again. He crawled out
from under the thing, but kept on attacking it, savagely, primally, his blows
wrought of sheer terror. Finally he stopped, realizing it was dead, that it
could no longer hurt him. He knelt over it, trying to catch his breath, which
would not seem to come to him.
Carley dan Aubrey's whimper brought him back to his senses. He dashed back
up the slope, finally getting to the boy.
"Cold," Carley mouthed quietly. Elbryan fell to his knees, reaching for
the wound, gingerly touching the spear and wondering if he should pull it free.
He looked at the boy, and he held his breath.
But Carley was dead.

Pony ran off, stumbled and fell, then scrambled on all fours -- anything
to get away. The goblin was behind her; she could imagine it readying its spear,
lining up her vulnerable back. She cried out and fell around a corner, flat on
her face. Realizing she hadn't been hit by anything, she put her feet back under
her and ran on.
Around the back of the house, Thomas Ault, Pony's father, tore his dagger
free and let the dead goblin fall to the ground. He looked plaintively at the
corner around which his daughter had run, hoping, praying she would somehow
escape.
Thomas had done all he could. He felt the sting of the light spears, six
of them, in his back, his side, deep in one thigh. He heard the footsteps as the
band of pursuing goblins closed the distance to him.
He prayed Pony would get away.

Before Elbryan could start back toward the town, he saw the shadows moving
among the trees in the area from which Carley had come. He knew these were not
his other friends, knew instinctively the others had fallen. He moved slowly,
quietly, away from Carley's body, taking cover behind a larger tree.
Seven goblins came into sight, trotting easily down the slope. They hooted
and laughed when they spotted the dead boy, then hooted even louder when they
saw their fallen companion, not even pausing as they passed.
Elbryan wanted to jump out at them, to slash them all. Wisdom overruled
his rage, though, and he stayed hidden and let them pass. Then he stalked after
them, his bloody sword in his bloody hand, hoping one of the creatures would
stray from its friends.
The smoke was growing thicker down in the village now. The screams had
diminished, but when he crossed an area that offered him a clear view of
Dundalis, Elbryan saw the scrambling forms were still thick about the place.
The young man knew it was hopeless, knew that his village was lost, knew
all of his friends, his parents, his Pony, were gone.
Elbryan knew it, yet he did not slow his pace and did not alter his
course. He was beyond grief, beyond logic, with no tears to cry. He would go
down to Dundalis; he would kill every goblin he could catch.

She saw the dead, saw the dying. She didn't know why she hadn't yet been
caught, but as she darted from shadow to shadow, from the side of one burning
building to the next, she knew that her luck would not hold out for long. All
thought of rescuing anyone was gone. All that she wanted now was to get away,
far away.
But how? The roads were thick with goblins. Groups of the ugly creatures
ran into each house, ransacked the place, and then, set it ablaze. They showed
no mercy; Pony saw one woman beg for her life, offer herself to the goblins
circling about her.
They hacked her down.
The noose was getting tighter, Pony knew. As villagers died, more and more
goblins were free to run about. She looked in every direction, trying to find
some course out of the town to the trees. But there was no escape, no way to get
beyond Dundalis without being seen. And there were other goblins in the woods,
coming in a few at a time.
No escape.
Pony squeezed in tight between two buildings and put her head against a
wall. She wondered if it would be better to run out into the road and get it
over with. "Better that than to wait," she mumbled determinedly, but she found
she could not do it, that her most basic instinct for survival would not let
her.
Pony took a deep breath. She felt the heat against her hands as this
house, too, started to burn. Now where could she run?
The girl cocked her head, suddenly realizing exactly where she was. This
was Shane McMichael's house in front of her, Olwan Wyndon's right behind her.
Olwan's house; Elbryan's house.
Elbryan's new house!
Pony remembered the building of the place, only two years previously. The
whole village had buzzed about the house because Olwan Wyndon was laying a stone
foundation.
Pony fell to her knees and began to scrape the ground at the base of
Olwan's house. Her fingers bled, she felt the heat growing behind her, but she
dug on desperately.
Then her hand broke through into an open area. She reached deeper, perhaps
a foot and a half down, and her hand met cold, wet ground. Olwan had used large
slabs for the base, and, as Pony suspected, the house hadn't completely settled.
The smoke grew thick about Pony; Olwan's house, too, went up in flames.
Still she dug, widening the hole, trying desperately to squeeze under the slab.

The angry young man didn't have long to wait. The goblin band, sentries
apparently and not part of the attacking force, did not continue down toward
Dundalis but split ranks and filtered left and right into the trees.
Elbryan went left, shadowing a group of three. He heard the continuing
screams in Dundalis, more of a pitiful weeping now than any cries of resistance.
He saw the houses burning, was close enough to realize that his own house was
among them.
That only fueled the young man's outrage. He stalked quietly from tree to
tree, and when one of the goblins paused and fell behind the others, he was
quickly to the spot.
The kill was swift, a single thrust through the creature's ribs, but not
quiet, for the goblin managed to let out a dying cry.
Elbryan tore free his sword and started to run, but too late. He swiped
left and right, picking off a pair of thrusting spears as the two other goblins
bore down on him, howling and shouting. Their eyes -- so full of glee, so
uncaring for their fallen comrade -- unnerved Elbryan, and he tried hard not to
look at them, tried to concentrate on their stabbing spears.
All the while he was backtracking, realizing he had to flee before the
other group answered the howling, call. The goblin on his left came in hard and
straight. Elbryan snapped his sword over and around the spear, angling it past
on his right, and he skittered out to the left, up the slope, gaining the higher
ground.
All advantage was lost as the young man stumbled, the loose earth slipping
out from under his foot. The other goblin ran around the back of its companion
and moved higher, coming in at Elbryan from above.
 Desperately, he threw himself backward, put a foot under him, and kicked
off, flying past the turning spear of the first goblin and rushing to get out of
range of the second. He slashed out with his sword as he careened past, gaining
hope as he felt it connect with something solid.
Then the world was spinning as Elbryan bounced and rolled. He finally
controlled his slide and tried to angle himself so he could stop his roll and
come up in a defensive posture. He expected the goblin -- perhaps both of the
creatures -- to be right behind him.
They weren't. The one Elbryan had slashed lay very still on the ground --
apparently he had hit it harder than he'd believed. The other was also on the
ground, squirming and groaning.
The only explanation Elbryan could think of was that it had charged at him
as he had leaped away and had slammed hard against the ground or against a tree
trunk. Not one to argue with good fortune, Elbryan scrambled to his feet.
Something tapped him on the shoulder, not hard at first, but then he was
flying once more, sidelong this time. He hit the ground in a roll but slammed
hard against a tree trunk as he came around. Confused and dazed, Elbryan
staggered to his feet.
And all hope flew from him as a fomorian giant, holding a club as large as
Elbryan's entire body, casually walked toward him. And Elbryan heard hoots from
behind him and knew the other four goblins were on the way.
The young man glanced all around. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. He
braced himself, used the solid tree as support. When the giant was within one
huge stride, Elbryan leaped out, trying to confuse it with sheer savagery. He
stabbed and slashed, came in close to the monster's knees and stabbed again,
then rolled right between the giant's legs.
But the giant had seen the move dozens of times in its battles with little
folk. Elbryan got halfway through before the giant clamped his knees together,
holding the youth so securely he could barely draw breath. Elbryan tried to stab
the monster again, but the giant squeezed even tighter, and all the young man
could do was groan. He managed to turn sideways, and from that perspective could
see the giant's club rise up over its head.
A sickening feeling washed over Elbryan. Stubborn to the end, he stabbed
again as hard as he could, then closed his eyes.
The air came alive with a strange humming sound. The giant released its
grip and Elbryan fell to the ground. He scrambled out, running on for several
steps. He heard the continuing whistles and thought for a moment that a swarm of
bees had flown up around him. Instinctively he whipped out his band, and then he
cried out for the sudden sting and pulled it back in close.
He turned about, regarding the giant, which was dancing and slapping at
the air. Beyond it he could see a pair of the four goblins that were coming in,
both of them jerking weirdly and then falling to the ground.
"What?" Elbryan asked in "utter confusion. Dots of red, like grotesque
chicken pox, covered the giant's face and arms. Looking closer, and then at his
own injured hand; Elbryan realized that these were not caused by bees, but were
bolts, small arrows, the likes of which he had never seen.
Scores and scores of small arrows, filling the air all about him!
But they hardly seemed to stop the behemoth. The fomorian charged ahead
with a tremendous, hideous howl, its cudgel going high. Elbryan, puny and
helpless beneath it, held aloft his short sword, though he could not possibly
deflect such a mighty blow.
The next volley was concentrated, sixty arrows flying fast for the giant's
face and throat, sixty bolts that looked indeed like a swarm of bees. The
fomorian staggered once, twice, and then again, as the bolts burrowed in, one on
top of the other, a dozen on top of the previous dozen. Finally, the stinging
ended, and the fomorian tried to move forward, back toward its prey. But before
it could get anywhere near to the young man, the giant went down, choking in its
own blood.
Elbryan never saw it; he had fainted dead away.

CHAPTER 5
God's Chosen

Brother Avelyn turned hard on the crank, both wood and man groaning with each
rotation. When would that bucket finally appear? the young novice wondered.
"Faster," insisted Quintall, Aveyln's work partner and classmate. The
class had been divided by birth dates; Avelyn and Quintall had been put,
together solely because they had been born in the same week, and not for
compatibility, either physical or emotional. Indeed, the two seemed obviously
mismatched. Quintall was the shortest man in the class of twenty-five, while
Avelyn was among the tallest. Both were large boned, but Avelyn was gawky and
awkward, whereas Quintall was muscular, a fine athlete.
They were opposites in temperament, as well: Avelyn calm and reverent,
always in control, and Quintall a "firework," as Master Siherton, the class
overseer, often appropriately referred to him.
"Is it near?" Avelyn asked after a few more unrewarded turns.
"Halfway," Quintall answered coldly, "if that."
Avelyn sighed deeply and put his aching arms into motion.
Quintall offered a disgusted snort; he would have had the bucket up by
this time and the pair could have gone off and gotten their midday meal. But it
was Avelyn's turn to crank, and the taskmasters were particular about such
things. If Quintall tried to sneak in and push that crank, it would likely cost
them both their meal.
"He is an impatient one," noted Master Jojonah, a portly man of about
fifty, with soft brown eyes and rich brown hair that showed not a speck of gray.
Jojonah's skin was tanned and smooth, except for a fan of lines spreading out
from each of his eyes -- "credibility wrinkles," he called them.
"Firework," explained Master Siherton, tall and angular and thin, though
his shoulders were wide, protruding many inches from either side of his skinny
neck. Siherton's features befit his rank of class overseer, the disciplinarian
of the newest brothers. His face was sharp and hawkish, his eyes small and dark
-- and smaller still on those many occasions that he squinted ominously at his
young students. "Quintall is full of passion," he added with obvious admiration.
Jojonah regarded the man curiously. They were inside the abbey's highest
chamber, a long, narrow room with windows overlooking the rough ocean breakers
on one side and the abbey courtyard on the other. All twenty-four-one novice had
been forced to leave because of illness -- brothers of the newest class were out
in the courtyard, tending their chores, but the focus of the two masters was
Avelyn and Quintall, considered the exceptional novices.
"Avelyn is the best of the class," Jojonah remarked, mostly to gauge
Siherton's reaction.
The taller man shrugged noncommittally.
"Some say that he is the best in many years," Jojonah pressed. It was true
enough; Avelyn's incredible dedication was fast becoming the talk of St.-Mere-
Abelle.
Again, the shrug. "He is without passion," Siherton replied.
"Without human passion because he is closer to God?" Jojonah replied,
thinking that he had finally caught Siherton.
"Perhaps because he is already dead," the tall man said dryly, and he
turned to glare at his counterpart.
Master Jojonah settled back on his heels but met the penetrating stare
firmly. It was no secret that Siherton favored Quintall among this most
important class, but the man's overt insult of Avelyn, the choice of every other
master -- and reportedly of Father Abbot Markwart as well -- surprised him.
"We received news this day that his mother died," Siherton said evenly.
Jojonah looked back at the courtyard, to Avelyn at work as always as
though nothing was amiss. "You have told him?"
"I did not bother."
"What macabre game do you play?"
Again came that annoying shrug. "Would he care?" Siherton replied. "He
would say that she is with God now, and so she is happy; and then he would go
on."
"Do you mock his faith?" Jojonah asked rather sharply.
"I despise his inhumanity," replied Siherton. "His mother has died, yet
will he care? I think not. Brother Avelyn is so smug within the cocoon of his
beliefs that nothing can unbalance him."
"That is the glory of faith," Jojonah said evenly.
"That is a waste of life," Siherton retorted as he leaned out the window.
"You, Brother Quintall!" he called.
Both the novices stopped their work and looked up at the window. "Go to
your meal," Master Siherton instructed. "And you, Brother Avelyn, do come and
join with me at my -- at Master Jojonah's chambers." Siherton pulled back into
the hall and eyed Jojonah.
"Let us see if our young hero has any heart at all;" Siherton remarked
coldly, and he stalked off toward the stairwell that would lead him down to the
master's quarters.
Jojonah watched him for a long moment, wondering which of them it was,
Siherton or Avelyn, who was truly lacking in heart.
"You are using this loss for a most unworthy point," Jojonah insisted when
he caught up to Siherton three levels below.
"He must be told," Siherton replied. "Let us not miss the opportunity to
measure this man in whom we may soon put so much trust."
Jojonah caught Siherton by the shoulder, stopping him in mid-stride.
"Avelyn has spent eight years proving himself worthy," he reminded the taller
man. "Unbeknownst to him, he has been under constant scrutiny these last four
years. What more would Siherton demand?"
"He must prove that he is a man," the hawkish master growled. "He must
prove that he can feel. There is more to spirituality than piety, my friend.
There is emotion, anger, passion."
"Eight years," Jojonah repeated.
"Perhaps the next class --"
"Too late," Master Jojonah said quietly. "The Preparers must be selected
from this class, or from one of the three previous, and not a man among the
seventy-five admitted in the last three years has shown the promise of Avelyn
Desbris." Jojonah paused and spent a long while studying the other man. Siherton
knew the truth of Jojonah's words, and seemed now caught within that truth,
helpless in the face of reality. His arguments against Avelyn would be duly
noted, but they rang hollow in light of the choices before the abbey. And even
with any credible arguments, Siherton's posture, bordering on anger, on outrage,
seemed so out of place.
"Why, my dear Siherton," Jojonah said a moment later, figuring it out,
"you are jealous!"
Master Siherton growled and turned away, heading for the door to Jojonah's
private room.
"Our misfortune to be born between the showers," Jojonah said, sincerely
sympathetic to Siherton's frustration. "But we have our duty. Brother Avelyn is
the best of the lot."
The words stung Siherton profoundly. He stopped at the door, bowed his
head; and closed his eyes, conjuring images of the young Avelyn. Always working
or praying; there were no other recollections of Avelyn to be found. Strength,
or weakness? Siherton wondered, and he wondered, too, about the potential danger
of having one so devout getting involved with the precious stones. There were
pragmatic matters concerning the magic which might not sit well in a man so deep
in faith, in a man so obviously convinced that he understood the desires of God.
"Father Abbot Markwart is quite pleased with the young man," Jojonah
remarked.
True enough, Siherton had to admit, and he understood that he would not
win any debate he might wage against the selection of Avelyn as one of the
Preparers. The position of the second Preparer remained wide open, though, and
so the tall master decided then and there that he would use his energy to put
forth a student better to his liking. Someone like Quintall, a young' man full
of fire and full of life. And, because of that passion, because of worldly
lusts, a man who could be controlled.

He was not surprised; his lip didn't quiver.

"Pray tell me, Master Siherton, was it peaceful?" he heard himself ask.
Master Jojonah was glad to hear the sympathetic question. Avelyn's lack of
initial response to the news that his mother had died had lent credence to
Siherton's complaints. "The messenger said that she died in her sleep,", Jojonah
interrupted.
Master Siherton eyed his peer sternly, considering the lie, for the
messenger, a young boy, had only delivered news of the death and had offered no
details surrounding it. Master Jojonah hadn't even conversed with the messenger.
In a rare display of sympathy, with Jojonah glaring at him out of the corner of
his brown eye, Siherton let it go.
Avelyn nodded, accepting the news.
"You will want to leave at once," Siherton offered, "to join your father
at your mother's gravesite."
Avelyn stared at him incredulously.
"Or you may choose to stay," Jojonah put in immediately, seeing the lure.
If Avelyn left St.-Mere-Abelle for any reason, he would have to wait until the
following year to enter. His reentry would be guaranteed, but his position as a
Preparer -- though he had no idea that he would be offered such a position or
even that there was such a thing -- would be lost.
"My mother is already buried, I assume," Avelyn responded to Siherton,
"and my father has surely left her grave to return home. Given the short time
since their departure from St.-Mere-Abelle, he has yet a long road before him."
Master Siherton squinted ominously and leaned close over Avelyn, glaring
openly. "Your mother has died, boy," he said slowly, accentuating each syllable.
"Do you care?"
The words hit young Avelyn hard. Did he care? He wanted to punch out at
the tall master for even insinuating otherwise. He wanted to fly into a rage,
tear the room -- and anyone who tried to stop him -- apart!
But that would be a disservice to Annalisa, Avelyn knew, an insult to the
memory of the gentle woman. Avelyn's mother had lived in the light of God.
Avelyn had to believe that, or else all of her life -- and all of his own life -
- would be no more than a lie. The reward for such a life, for such a good
heart, was a better existence in a better place. Annalisa was with God now.
That thought bolstered the young man. He straightened his shoulders and
looked squarely at the imposing Master Siherton.
"My mother knew that she would not make it home," he said quietly, aiming
his words at Jojonah. "We all knew it. She lived on, in sickness, only to see me
enter the Order of St.-Mere-Abelle. It was her glory that I join the Abellican
Church, and I would be stealing that glory if I left now." He sucked in his
breath, bolstering his declaration.
 "The Order of St.-Mere-Abelle, God's Year 816," Brother Avelyn said
without the slightest quiver in his voice. "That is my place. That is the vision
that allowed Annalisa Desbris to pass on peacefully from this world."
Master Jojonah nodded, seeing the calm and logical reasoning, and at once
impressed with, and frightened of, the depth of this young man's faith. It was
obvious that Avelyn had loved his mother dearly, and yet, there was a sincerity
in his. demeanor. In that, Jojonah could clearly see Siherton's point. Either
Avelyn had a direct line to God or the young man simply had no idea of what it
was to be human.
"May I go?" Avelyn asked.
The question caught Jojonah off guard, and as he considered it, he came to
realize that Avelyn's stoicism was, perhaps, not so deeply rooted. "You will be
excused from your duties this day," the master stated.
"No," Avelyn replied without hesitation. He bowed his head as soon as he
realized that he had just spoken against a master's command, an offense that
could lead to exile from the abbey. "Please allow me to continue my duties."
Jojonah looked to Siherton, who was shaking his head disgustedly. Without
a word, the tall master stalked from the room.
Jojonah suspected that young Brother Avelyn should be careful in the
coming weeks. Master Siherton would see to his dismissal if given any real
cause. The gentle master hesitated for a long while, making sure that Siherton
would be far away by the time that Avelyn left the room.
"As you wish, Brother Avelyn," Jojonah subsequently agreed. "Be away,
then. You have a few minutes left for your midday meal."
Avelyn bowed deeply and exited the room.
Jojonah folded his hands on his desk and spent a long while staring at the
closed door. What was it about Avelyn that really bothered Siherton? he
wondered. Was it, as Siherton insisted, the young man's apparent inhumanity? Or
was it something more profound? Was Avelyn, perhaps, a higher standard, a
shadowy mirror, held up before all the monks of St.-Mere-Abelle, a testament of
true faith that seemed so rare in these times, even in the holy abbey?
That thought shook Jojonah as he looked around at his decorated chamber,
at the beautiful tapestry he had commissioned from the gallery of Porvon dan
Guardinio, among the most respected artists in all the world. He considered the
gold leaf highlighting the carved hardwood of the room's support beams, the rich
rug from some exotic land, the cushiony chairs, the many baubles and trinkets on
his vast bookshelf, every one of them worth more gold than a common laborer
would make in a year.
Piety, dignity, poverty, that was the pledge offered upon entering the
Order of St.-Mere-Abelle. That was the standard. Jojonah glanced around the room
again, reminding himself that most of the other masters, even some of the tenth-
year immaculates, had chambers more richly adorned.
Piety, dignity, poverty.
But pragmatism, too, should be part of that pledge, so said Father Abbot
Markwart, and so had declared the abbey's. previous leaders, dating back more
than two centuries. In Honce-the-Bear, wealth equalled power, and without power,
how could the Order hope to influence the lives of the common folk? Wasn't God
better served by strength than by weakness?
So went the widely accepted argument that allowed for relaxing some
aspects of the holy pledge.
Still, Master Jojonah could see why a student such as Avelyn Desbris would
so unnerve Master Siherton.
That night, Avelyn retired to his room, thoroughly exhausted, both
emotionally and physically. He had spent all his waking hours at demanding work,
volunteering for the most difficult parts of each task. He had lost count of the
buckets he had cranked up from the well -- somewhere near fifty -- and had gone
right from that heavy work to removing loose stones near to the northern end of
the abbey's top wall, pulling them free and piling them neatly for the masons
who would follow the next day.
Only the call to vespers, the ceremony heralding eventide, had interrupted
Avelyn's frantic pace. He went quietly to the service, then skipped his evening
meal altogether and went right to his
chamber, a five-foot-square cubicle with a single stool, which doubled as a
table for Avelyn's candle, and a cot -- little more than a flat board and a
blanket -- that folded down from one wall.
The work was ended now, and the ache settled in. Despite his weariness,
Avelyn Desbris could hardly sleep. Images of his mother flooded his thoughts; he
wondered if he might see a vision of her now, a visitation of her spirit before
it went to its place in heaven. Would Annalisa come to say goodbye to her
youngest child, or had she already said her farewells to Avelyn in the courtyard
outside of St.-Mere-Abelle?
Avelyn rolled off the cot and fumbled with his flint and steel, finally
getting the candle lit. He glanced around in the shadowy light, as if expecting
Annalisa to be standing in a comer waiting for him.
She wasn't, to Avelyn's ultimate disappointment.
The young man settled on the edge of his cot, head bowed, hands resting on
his sore thighs. He felt the first tears leaking from his eyes and tried to deny
them. To cry would be a weakness, Avelyn reasoned, a lack of faith. If what he
believed, what he truly held in his heart, could not sustain him in a time of
death, then of what value was it? The Abellican Church, the ancient scriptures,
promised heaven to those deserving, and who could be more deserving than gentle
and generous Annalisa Desbris?
A tear rolled down Avelyn's cheek, then another. He dropped his head
lower, brought his hands up. to cover his eyes, his wet eyes.
A sob lifted Avelyn's bowed shoulders. He tried to deny it, tried to fight
back. He recited the Prayer of the Dead, the Prayer of the Faithful, the Prayer
of Eternal Promise, all in a row, forcing his voice to hold steady.
Still the tears came; every so often his even tone was broken by a sniffle
or a sob.
He went through the recitals again, and again. He prayed with all his
heart, wrapping the words around images of his mother, often intoning her name
between lines of verse. He was on the floor then, but did not know how he had
gotten there. On the floor and curled up like a baby, wanting his mother,
praying for his mother.
Finally, after more than an hour, Avelyn composed himself and sat back on
the cot, taking several deep breaths to fight away the last of the sobs. He
thought long and hard then, considering his grief, searching his soul for the
weakness that had come into his faith.
Soon enough, he had his answer, and Avelyn was glad. He was not crying, he
realized, for Annalisa, for he did indeed hold faith that she had passed on to a
deserved better existence. He was crying for himself, for his brothers and
sisters, for his father, for all who knew Annalisa Desbris and would not be
graced by her presence in this life again.
Avelyn could accept that. His faith was intact and solid, and so he was
not desecrating the memory of his mother. He moved to blow out the candle, then
changed his mind and settled back on the cot. Still his eyes searched the
corners of the shadowy room for his mother's spirit.
Perhaps he would find her in his dreams.

Two men walked quietly away from Brother Avelyn's closed door. "Are you
satisfied?" Master Jojonah asked Master Siherton when they were far away.
Indeed Siherton had been pleased to hear Avelyn crying, to know that the
too -- dedicated young man was possessed of human emotions, but the sound of
Avelyn's sobs had not changed the stern master's general attitude toward Avelyn.
He gave a slight nod to Jojonah and started away.
"I have been given the blessings of Father Abbot Markwart to show young
Brother Avelyn the stones," Jojonah called after him.
Siherton stopped dead in his tracks, fought down the angry protest that
rose in his throat, and then nodded again, only slightly, and continued on his
way.
It was settled then. Brother Avelyn Desbris would be one of the Preparers.

Avelyn tried to keep his head bowed, his eyes to the floor, as befitted
his lowly station, but he couldn't help notice some of the splendors that
surrounded him as he followed Master Jojonah through the winding corridors of
the Abbot's Maze, the most private and revered place in all of St.-Mere-Abelle,
and one that a first-year novice would certainly not expect to visit.
Jojonah's explanation for the tour had been weak, some remark about an
area that needed cleaning. After only a few weeks in the abbey, Avelyn knew
enough about the routine to understand that students much older and more
experienced than he were the normal choice for any tasks, however menial, in the
Abbot's Maze. He also knew that nothing special was going on, that many of the
older students would have been available to Master Jojonah.
His questions were kept private though, for it was not his place to ask
anything of the masters. Only to obey, and so he was, walking as quietly as he
could beside the plump man, keeping his head bowed but still stealing an
occasional glance at the splendor: the gold leaf bordering every side door, the
wondrous and intricate carvings on every beam of wood, the mosaic tile patterns
on the floors, the tapestries, so rich in detail that Avelyn figured he could
spend hours and hours lingering over but one of them. Master Jojonah talked
constantly, though he said nothing of interest -- slight remarks about the
weather, a storm that had hit twenty years before, the passing of his favorite
baker in the town of St.-Mere-Abelle, a surprisingly off-color remark about the
man's "lusty" wife. None of it diverted Avelyn's attention from the wonders of
the place, though he did listen somewhat, fearing to miss any questions directed
his way.
They stopped before a heavy door -- and what a door! Avelyn could not help
but lift his eyes at the sight of the thing, at the layers and layers of painted
carvings, scenes of battles, of Saint Abelle being burned at the stake, of the
healing hands of Mother Bastibule. Scenes of angels conquering demons, of the
mighty demon dactyl screaming in agony as its own lava poured over it, consuming
it. Scenes of the Halo, the heavenly gift, enwrapping all the others, an oval
because of the angle at which it was portrayed. It started, if such a complete
thing could be said to start, at the bottom left corner of the door, and led the
observer's eye upward across the portal to the top right. And on the way, as
Avelyn's eyes scanned, it seemed to him as if the history of the world, of the
faith, unfolded to him, the images packed so that one led to another easily,
with enough distinction so that each made an impact, however brief, like the
flowing of time.
He wanted to kneel and pray; he wanted to ask who the artist -- or
artists; for certainly no one man could have created all of this -- might be,
but realized before the words left his mouth that any name would be
inconsequential, for certainly the carvers and illuminators who had done this
had done so at the explicit intervention of God. He alone, who called all the
men and women of the world His children, might have done this.
"You know of the Ring Stones?" Master Jojonah asked abruptly, and the
words sounded sharp and out of place to Avelyn. He nearly jumped, and turned
with a start, surprised that a master would be so foolish as to speak in the
presence of such beauty.
Then the impact of the question hit him fully.
 "You know?" Jojonah asked again.
Avelyn swallowed hard, trying to discern his best response. Of course he
knew of the Ring Stones, the heavenly gifts to St.-Mere-Abelle, the source of
all the magic in the world. Avelyn didn't know much, though, just the common
rumors about how the stones would fall from the heavens into the hands of
waiting monks, to be blessed by the Father Abbot that their special powers be
realized.
"We are the Keepers of the Stones;" Master Jojonah said after a moment,
Avelyn still making no move to respond.
The young monk nodded slightly.
"It is our most holy duty," Jojonah said, moving to the door and lifting
the heavy latch that held it. Avelyn blinked; amid the wonders of the door, he
hadn't even noticed the huge latch!
"The stones are the proof of our faith," Jojonah remarked, pushing wide
the door.
Avelyn stood as if turned to stone. "The proof of our faith," he whispered
under his breath, hardly believing that a master of St-Mere-Abelle had uttered
those borderline blasphemous words. Faith heeded no proof -- indeed the very
value of faith was loyalty to beliefs without proof!
Of course Avelyn would not protest aloud, and even his silent musings were
washed away as the heavy door opened silently, on balanced and oiled hinges, to
reveal the greatest splendor of all.
The room inside was well lit, though Avelyn saw no torches and didn't
smell the usual odor of burning wood. They were far below ground in one of the
abbey's interior chambers, so there could be no window. But there was indeed
light inside that room, such a light as to make Avelyn think of a cloudless
midsummer day. It filled every corner, every crack in every stone, and reflected
brilliantly off the glass covers of the many cases set about the room, and off
their contents, as well, hundreds and hundreds of polished stones.
The Ring Stones!
Jojonah moved into the room, Avelyn practically stumbling behind him. The
young monk made no pretense of keeping his gaze low now, looking left and right
as they passed each case, marveling at the gems, the reds and blues, amber-
colored stones and violet crystals. One case of a dozen or so smooth stones, a
dark gray in hue but somehow seeming even blacker than night, caught Avelyn's
attention and made him shudder, though he did not know why. In another case he
saw clear stones -- he recognized them as diamonds -- and he paused again, and
noted that Jojonah, too, had paused, allowing him to linger.
Avelyn studied the way the light worked off the many facets of the
diamonds, how it seemed to delve within the stone itself, swirling down to
crystalline depths. Then he realized the truth.
"The diamonds are the source of the light," he said, and he bit his lip
immediately when he realized that he had spoken out of turn.
"Well done," Master Jojonah congratulated, and Avelyn relaxed somewhat.
"What do you know of the Ring Stones?"
"They are the source of all the magic in the world," Avelyn recited.
Jojonah nodded but said, "Not exactly true."
Avelyn stared at him hard.
"The Ring Stones are the source of all goodly magic," Master Jojonah
explained.
"God-given magic," Avelyn dared to put in.
Jojonah hesitated -- a pause not consciously caught by Avelyn, but one
that he would recall in years to come -- then nodded. "But there are, too, the
Earth Stones, the source of evil magic, the power of the dactyls," said Jojonah.
"They are not numerous, by God's grace, and can only be used by those demons --
who, by God's grace, are even less numerous!" He ended with a chuckle, but
Avelyn was hard-pressed to see any humor in a discussion of the demon dactyls.
 Jojonah cleared his throat uncomfortably. "And there is magic in the
Touel'alfar, as well," he said. "In their melodious singing, so it is said, and
in the metal their gardens `grow' from the soil."
"Grow?" Avelyn asked.
Master Jojonah shrugged; it was not important. "Tell me of the Ring
Stones," he prompted. "Who gathers them?"
"The brothers of St.-Mere-Abelle," Avelyn answered immediately.
"From where?"
"They fall from the sky, from the Halo, into the waiting hands of --"
Jojonah's chuckle stopped him short. "They fall with a speed greater than
that of an arrow in flight," the master explained. "And they are hot, my novice
friend, so hot as to burn the flesh and the bone beneath it!" Jojonah chuckled
again as he described to Avelyn an image of a young monk standing in a field, as
holed as the cheese of Alpinador, an incredulous look on his face, a group of
glowing rocks on the ground behind him.
Avelyn bit hard on his lip. He realized that Jojonah wasn't mocking him,
but could not understand why he was being told these things.
"Where do we get them?" Jojonah asked suddenly.
Avelyn started to say, "The Halo," but stopped short, realizing that that
ground had already been covered. His expression blank, he merely shrugged.
"Pimaninicuit," Jojonah said.
Avelyn's expression did not change.
"An island," the master explained. "Pimaninicuit. That is the only place
where the sacred stones may be collected."
Avelyn had never heard such a thing.
"If you ever utter that name to any who do not know it, without the
express permission -- no, the express instruction -- of the presiding father
abbot of St.-Mere-Abelle, all of the powers of the abbey will be put into focus
to bring about your execution."
Avelyn knew why he had never heard the name before.
"When do we get them?" Jojonah asked, changing the subject so abruptly
that he had Avelyn thoroughly flustered. Again the young monk could only shrug
helplessly, wanting to know but afraid to know. There was something most sacred,
yet particularly unmysterious, and thus unholy, in all of this, a tingling of
ecstasy combined with a slightly foul taste that Avelyn Desbris could not
ignore.
"The stones do not come to ground often," Jojonah explained, sounding more
like a scholar than a priest. "They do not fall frequently, but they do fall
regularly." He led the way to the left-hand wall of the large chamber, and as
they neared, Avelyn could see that the murals carved there were, in fact,
charts, astronomical charts. Avelyn, who had often spent hours at a time gazing
at the wondrous night sky, recognized some of the points. He noted the four-
starred girdle of Progos-Behemoth the Warrior, the most prominent constellation
in the northern sky, and the arcing stars that marked the handle of the Farmer's
Bucket, the one he had to walk away from his parent's back door in order to see,
for it always lingered right above their roof. Corona, with its Halo, was
certainly evident, and prominent, being the center of it all, as Corona was the
center of the universe.
Looking closer, Avelyn noted grooves in the wall. At first he thought them
the borders of the known spheres, for he had heard theories of the universe as a
series of overlapping, interlocking heavenly spheres, the invisible bubbles that
held the layers of stars in place. When he realized that most of the grooves
were near Corona, connecting the sun and the moon, and the five planets, he came
to understand the truth. Those grooves were of a practical and not aesthetic
nature, serving the mechanics of the chart so that the heavenly bodies could be
kept in motion. Avelyn carefully noted the position of Sheila, the moon, and
stared at it long enough to realize that it was indeed moving, ever so slightly,
along its path about Corona.
"Six generations," Master Jojonah explained, after he had given Avelyn
several quiet minutes' in which to study the fabulous chart. "Or nearly," he
added when Avelyn turned to him. "A hundred and seventy-three years will pass
between each of the offerings."
"Offerings?"
"The stone showers," Jojonah explained. "Consider yourself blessed, my
novice friend, for you live in a time of the showers."
Avelyn breathed hard and stared again at the chart, as if expecting little
lines of falling stones to appear between the Halo and Corona.
"Have you ever witnessed one of the stones at work?" Jojonah asked
suddenly, drawing Avelyn from his contemplations. The young man stared at him
wide-eyed with hope and eagerness, his hands clenching and opening at his sides.
Jojonah pointed to a case near to the middle of the room, and motioned for
Avelyn to approach it. As soon as his back was turned to the master, Avelyn
heard a click from the wall and suspected that Jojonah had thrown some sort of
lever, probably hidden within the tapestry of the star charts, to unlock the
case. The master soon joined him at the case and slowly slid back the glass top.
There were several various stones within, all smooth and polished.
Jojonah's hand reached for one of two of the shiny gray stones. "The soul
stones," he explained. "Hematite, by name." He held the stone tightly in his
right hand, then reached back in with his left and took out a different gem,
mostly clear, but with a slight shading of yellow-green. "Chrysoberyl," he said.
"A stone of protection, in this clear form. Always a wise choice when dealing
with the dark hematite!"
Avelyn didn't really understand, but he was too overwhelmed by all of this
to think of interrupting with a question.
Jojonah dropped the chrysoberyl into the pocket of his thick robe and
moved far from Avelyn, facing the younger man directly. "Count to ten," he
instructed, "that I might have time to cast the enchantment. Then place your
hands behind your back and raise your fingers, however many you choose, in a
slow and clear sequence of seven distinct numbers. Take care, to remember your
sequence!"
The master closed his eyes and began to softly chant. Avelyn hesitated for
a moment, trying to digest the newest information. He collected himself quickly
and did as instructed, alternating the number of raised fingers behind his back.
Through it all, Master Jojonah continued his soft chant, his eyes never
fluttering, all of his body seeming locked in place.
A moment later, the master opened his eyes. "Seven, three, six, five,
five, two, and eight," Jojonah said, seeming quite pleased with himself.
"You heard what was within my mind!" Avelyn gasped.
"No," Jojonah quickly corrected. "I left my physical body and ventured
behind you. I merely watched as you raised your fingers."
Avelyn started to respond but held the thought private, though his labored
breath and incredulous expression revealed volumes.
"Not so hard a task!" Master Jojonah said suddenly, exploding with
delight. "The hematite is a powerful tool, among the most powerful stones of
all. Using it to walk out of body barely touches at the edge of its true magic.
Anyone trained in the stones could do it. Why even you . . ." Jojonah's voice
trailed off, a tease that anxious Avelyn could not ignore.
"Brother Avelyn," the master said in all seriousness a moment later,
"would you care to try?"
Before he could even begin to consider the offer, Avelyn nodded so
forcefully that he was sure he must have looked incredibly simple. His feet,
too, were moving before his conscious thought could stop them, as if he were
being drawn to the stone.
 Jojonah nearly laughed aloud at the spectacle, and held forth the
hematite. Avelyn reached for it, but the master pulled it back.
"It is a powerful stone," the master said somberly, "one that could put
you somewhere you do not belong. Take care in your travels, my young friend, for
you may soon be lost!"
Avelyn retracted his hand a few inches, wondering if he was being a bit
foolish here. The temptation was too strong, though, and he reached out again,
and this time, Jojonah let him take the hematite.
Its feel was impossibly smooth, almost liquid. It was heavier than Avelyn
had expected, quite solid and dense. He ran his fingers over it repeatedly, felt
something deeper within it, a place of mystery, of magic. He looked to Jojonah
and saw that the master was clutching the chrysoberyl close to his heart.
"It will prevent our spirits from crossing," Jojonah explained. "That
would not be a wise choice."
Avelyn nodded and backed off a few steps. Jojonah put his free hand behind
his back. "All in your due time," he said softly. "I will know when you are in
the hold of the magic, and then I will begin."
Avelyn hardly heard him. Already the young monk was falling into the
depths of the stone. To his rubbing fingers, the hematite felt truly liquid
then, and inviting. Avelyn stared at it for a long while, then closed his eyes,
but saw it still. It was expanding before him, engulfing his hands, then his
arms. Then he was falling, falling.
He resisted, and the hematite receded dramatically, almost forcing him
from the trance. But Avelyn caught his fears in time and started the journey
once more.
His hands were gone, then his arms. Then all was gray, then black.
Avelyn stepped out of his body. He looked back and saw himself standing
there, holding the stone. He turned back to Jojonah, saw most distinctly the
chrysoberyl, fiercely glowing and encasing all of the master in a thin white
bubble, a ward that Avelyn knew his spirit could not pass.
He started toward Jojonah, giving the man a wide berth. He felt incredibly
light, felt as if by will alone he could rise from the ground and fly.
Behind the master, Avelyn watched the sequence of fingers: one, three,
two, one, five.
"Go higher," he heard Master Jojonah prompt.
Avelyn was surprised that he could even hear the voice in this state. He
understood the command and willed himself off the ground, drifting effortlessly
toward the ceiling.
"There is no physical barrier that can stop you," Jojonah remarked. "No
barriers at all. Have you seen the roof? There is something on the roof that you
should know."
Despite the thrill, Avelyn flinched as he drifted through the room's
ceiling. He marveled at the loose structure of the wood, at the density of the
higher room's tile floor.
There were several monks, men a few years Avelyn's senior, in the chamber
above. Avelyn felt himself grinning, felt his physical form in the lower room
grinning, as he passed, the men totally oblivious of him.
Then the grin was gone. Something tugged hard at the young monk, some dark
temptation that he should enter one of these men, that he could push out the
host spirit and possess the body!
He was beyond them before that dangerous notion fully registered, drifting
higher, through the next ceiling into an empty room, then through that ceiling
and the next and the next and the next, this last one much thicker. Then he was
outside, though he felt none of the physical sensations, the warmth of the sun
or the chill of the ocean breeze. He saw that he was rising above one of the
highest spots of St.-Mere-Abelle, coming right out of the roof. Still he went
higher, and Avelyn feared that he would never stop the ascent, that he would
drift through the clouds, out to the Halo, the stars. Perhaps he would shine in
the heavens above, a fifth light on the girdle of Progos-Behemoth!
He dismissed that ridiculous notion and turned his spirit about, looking
at the roof of the abbey. From up here: St.-Mere-Abelle appeared as a thick and
stretched snake, winding its way along the top of the sea cliff. Avelyn saw a
commotion in the courtyard, far to the side, as a group of young monks labored
at the well and with the abbey's horses and mules.
"Come back," bade a distant voice, Master Jojonah's voice, reaching Avelyn
through his physical form. The disconnection was not complete, the young monk
realized, and he shuddered to think of what a complete break from his own
physical form might mean.
Shocked back to his senses, Avelyn turned his attention to the high roof
directly below him. He had seen this roof before, from one of the higher points
of the abbey, but looking on it from this vantage point revealed a most clever
design, an image that could not be seen from a lower angle. Carved into the roof
were four arms, two sets, hands lifted high, palms open and holding stones.
The journey back was quicker, until Avelyn got into the room directly
above the Ring Stone chamber. This time the temptation of the other bodies
pulled at him even harder. He felt himself being drawn in. He pictured the
hematite as another living being, commanding him, whispering promises of power
into his spiritual ear.
Avelyn felt something touch his hand -- not his spiritual hand, but the
physical one, the one clutching the stone. He sensed the chrysoberyl again, that
magical barrier, and then his spirit was pulled to the floor, through the floor,
careening back to his waiting body.
Avelyn nearly jumped when he opened his physical eyes again, seeing Master
Jojonah so very close.
"One, three, two, one, five," the young monk said abruptly, trying to
satisfy whatever curiosity held the older man.
Jojonah waved his hand and shook his head, uninterested. "What did you
see?" he asked.
Avelyn noted that Jojonah held both stones again, though he didn't
remember giving the hematite back to the man.
"What did you see?" Jojonah pressed, moving even closer.
"Arms," Avelyn blurted. ""Two sets, palms open . . ." Before he could
finish, Jojonah fell away, gasping, laughing, crying all at once. Avelyn had
never seen such a display, couldn't begin to decipher it.
"How?" Avelyn asked with enough force to bring Jojonah back to his senses.
"The stones," Avelyn clarified when he had the man's attention. "How could this
be?"
Jojonah launched into a rushed explanation, more the regurgitation of a
prepared speech than anything spontaneous. He talked of the humours of the body
joining together with the alien humours of the stones to create the seemingly
magical reaction. He even compared what had happened to Avelyn with the tablets
given to a monk with a stomachache to induce a belch or a fart.
As he listened, Avelyn felt the mystery melting around him. For the first
time since they had entered the room, there was no reverence in Master Jojonah's
voice, just the dry lecturing tone of an instructor. Avelyn didn't buy into it,
any of it. He could. not explain what had just happened to him, but he knew
instinctively that this talk of "alien humours" belittled the experience. There
was indeed a mystery here that no tumble of fancy words could lay bare; there
was something here of a higher order. Master Jojonah had called the stone
showers "offerings," and to Avelyn, that description seemed exactly wrong.
"Graces" was a more appropriate term, the young monk decided there and then. He
glanced around the room again, from stone to stone, his reverence of these gifts
from God tenfold what it had been when first he had entered the chamber.
 "You should be among those select few who make the journey," Master
Jojonah declared, and the weight of the statement drew Avelyn back to him.
"To Pimaninicuit," Jojonah explained, his grin widening as Avelyn's brown
eyes widened. "You are young and strong and full of God's voice."
Tears collected in Avelyn's eyes and began to stream-down his face at the
mere thought that he might be among the chosen few to get so very close to the
greatest gift of God
Jojonah dismissed him then and he left the room as if in a trance,
overwhelmed indeed.
When he was gone, Master Jojonah replaced the stones, closed the case,
then went to the wall and moved the hidden switch to lock it fast. All the
while, the master considered the weight of what he had witnessed. A first-year
novice should not have been able to activate the magic of the stone, despite
what he had told Avelyn about hematite. Even if a novice had managed to fall
into the magic, the control should have been above him, a quick and random out
of body experience, culminating with a gasping, disbelieving, thoroughly
overwhelmed young man.
For Avelyn to control the magic enough to get behind Jojonah's back and
see the finger sequence was incredible. For the young man to use the stones and
drift out of the room, out of the abbey, and see the design on the roof was
truly amazing. Jojonah would not have believed it possible. The master paused
and lamented his own weakness. He had been in St.-Mere-Abelle for more than
three decades, and had only been able to use the hematite that way for the last
three years!
Jojonah pushed his own self-pity away and smiled about Avelyn. The young
monk was a good choice, a God-given choice indeed, to go to Pimaninicuit.

CHAPTER 6
Carrion Birds

She came back to consciousness never expecting to see the wide sky again. She
opened her blue eyes even as she moved her hands in frantic waves, trying to rid
the small hole of the thick odor of charred wood.
A slanting ray cut in through the smoke, a single shaft of light that
beckoned the girl back to the land of the living. She followed it as if in a
dream, gingerly reaching up to touch the piece of lumber that had fallen to
partially block the hole.
The wood was warm. Jilseponie understood then that she had been
unconscious for a long time. She found she could put her arm against the beam
firmly as long as she kept her sleeve between tender flesh and the wood.
The girl pushed hard, but the beam would not give. Stubborn as ever,
summoning her rage to bolster her muscles, Pony set her legs under her as firmly
as she could and pushed again, with all her might, groaning with the strain.
The sound of her own voice stopped her cold. What if the goblins were
still out there? She settled back and sat very still, listening intently, not
even daring to breathe.
She heard the cawing of the birds -- carrion birds, she knew. But nothing
else came to her -- not the whimper of a survivor, not the whining, grating
voice of a goblin, not the guttural grunts of the fomorian giants.
Just the birds, feeding on the bodies of her fallen friends.
That horrid thought set Pony into violent motion. She set her legs again
and pushed with every ounce of strength she had, groaning but too angry to
consider the implications of her noise should the goblins still be around.
The beam lifted an inch and shifted to the side, but Pony could not
maintain its weight and it came down heavily, with a decidedly final thud. Pony
knew that she could not move it again from this new angle, and so she didn't
even try. Now she squirmed and squeezed. She got her arm through, then her head
and one shoulder, and held there for a moment, trying to catch her breath, so
relieved to have her face, at least, out in the open sunlight once again.
That relief lasted only until the girl glanced around. This was Dundalis -
- she knew that logically -- but it was no place Pony had ever seen before. All
that remained of Elbryan's house was a few beams and the stone foundation; all
that remained of Dundalis was a few beams and a few stones.
And bodies. Pony only saw a couple from this angle, a goblin and an older
woman, but the stench of death hung as thickly in the air as the smoke from the
fires. A substantial voice within Pony's head told her to crawl back into the
hole, to curl up and cry, perhaps even to die, for death -- be it heaven, be it
empty blackness -- had to be preferable to this.
She spent a long while halfway in and halfway out, teetering on the edge
of hysteria, of hopelessness. She made up her mind simply to crawl back in, but
something, some inner resolve the young woman did not yet understand, would not
let her.
Again came the wriggling, the tearing of clothes and scraping of skin, the
frantic pull and twist that, at last, freed her from the hole. And then came the
next long pause, lying on the ground on her back, her thoughts swirling down a
multitude of paths, every one of which seemed to lead to no place but despair.
With great effort, Pony pulled herself up from the ground and walked from
between the piles of rubble that had been the houses of Olwan Wyndon and Shane
McMichael. The main. road remained, crushed stones and packed dirt carefully
edged for drainage, and that alone confirmed to Pony that she was indeed in
Dundalis, in the remains of what had been her home. Not a single structure
stood. Not a single person or even a horse remained alive. Nor were there any
living goblins or giants, Pony, realized, with small relief. Only the vultures,
dozens and dozens, some circling overhead, most on the ground feasting, tearing
at skin that had been warm to Pony's touch just the day before, pecking at eyes
that had locked with her own, shared gaze and shared thought.
Pony turned with a start, visualizing the fight on the road, the last she
had seen of her father. There were the bodies; she saw Olwan, crumpled and
broken in the same spot where she had seen him fall. And then she could look no
more, fearing that she would find Thomas Ault, her father dear, among the dead.
Of course he was dead, Pony told herself, and so was her mother, and so was
Elbryan, and so was everyone.
The girl, feeling so helpless and so little, nearly fell to the ground,
but again that stubborn instinct kept her upright. She noted the great numbers
of dead goblins, even a couple of giants. One group in particular, a pile of
many monstrous corpses together in the road, posed a curious riddle. They had
fallen as if they had formed a defensive ring, yet there were no human bodies
near them. Just the goblins and a lone giant, slumped together, soaked in blood
from the many small wounds on each corpse. Pony thought she should go closer to
investigate, but she hadn't the stomach.
She stood and stared, and a numbness came over her, stealing her emotions.
The riddle was lost, for Pony was too exhausted to pause and ponder it, to pause
and think of anything -- too defeated and bedraggled to do anything except
stagger out of the village, moving south along the road, then turning west at
the first fork, moving toward the dying sun.
Subconscious instinct alone guided her. Weedy Meadow was the closest
village, but Pony really didn't think that the place would be any different.
Surely all the world had fallen to ruin; surely all the people were dead, were
being pecked and torn by vultures.
Sometime later, as dusk descended, Pony's senses warned her that she was
not alone. To the right, she saw a slight shiver of one small bush. It could
have been a ground squirrel, the girl reasoned, but she knew in her heart that
it was not.
 To the left came a titter, a tiny voice whispering softly.
Pony kept moving straight ahead. She cursed herself for not having had the
wisdom to collect a weapon before leaving Dundalis. It wouldn't matter, she
quickly reminded herself, and perhaps this way, defenseless, the end would come
more quickly.
So she went on, stubbornly, looking straight ahead, ignoring any signals
that she might not be alone, that goblins might be behind every tree, watching
her, laughing at her, taking good measure of her, perhaps even arguing among
themselves over which one would be given the pleasure of the kill -- and the
pleasures that might come before the kill.
That thought nearly dropped Pony to the ground, reminded her of Elbryan,
of the moments before the disaster, of the kiss . . .
Then she cried. She walked straight ahead, kept her shoulders squared.
But she could not deny the tears, and the guilt and the pain.
She slept fitfully at the base of a tree, in open view right beside the
road, shivering from the cold, from the nightmares that she feared would haunt
her forever.
Those dreams were mercifully gone when she awoke, and no images could she
conjure of the village, of her family and her friends. All that the girl knew
was that she was out on the road somehow, somewhere.
She knew that she was in pain, physical and emotional, but the reason for
the latter escaped her conscious memory.
She didn't even know her own name.

The giant was there, facedown in the blood and dirt, in the same place
Elbryan had last seen it, just a few feet from where he had fainted. At that
horrible moment, the monster had been lifting its club to squash Elbryan; now it
was dead.
And so were a dozen other goblins, scattered all about the area.
Elbryan sat up and rubbed his face, noting the cut and dried blood on one
of his hands. His thoughts careened suddenly back to Pony and the kiss at the
twin pines atop the ridge. Then they came full force back to the present,
through those minutes of horror -- the goblins in the woods; poor Carley; the
smoke from Dundalis; Jilseponie running, running for the town, screaming every
step. It had all been so unreal, had all happened much too quickly. In the span
of a few unbelievable minutes, Elbryan's entire world had been thrown down.
The young man knew all that, as he sat in the dirt, staring curiously at
the somehow dead giant. He knew nothing would ever be as it had been.
He struggled to his feet and approached the fomorian tentatively, though
he realized from the amount of blood and from the absolute stillness of the
creature that it was certainly dead. He moved to the head and knelt, studying
the many wounds.
Puncture wounds, as from arrows, only much smaller. Elbryan recalled the
humming sound; he conjured an image of buzzing bees. He found the nerve to
inspect more closely, even to put his thumb on the edge of one prominent wound
and push the skin back.
"No bolt," he remarked aloud, trying to make sense of it all. Again he
thought of bees -- giant bees, perhaps, that stung and stung and flew away. He
sat back again and began a quick count, then shook his head helplessly when he
realized the giant had at least twenty such wounds on its exposed face alone and
no doubt countless others all over its fifteen-foot frame.
The young man simply had no answers now. He had thought himself dead, and
yet he was not. He had thought Dundalis doomed . . .
Elbryan scrambled to his feet, did a quick check of the dead goblins in
the area. He was somewhat surprised, and a bit humbled, to find that even the
two he had struggled against, even the one he had thought slain by his own
sword, also showed many mysterious puncture wounds.
 "Bees, bees, bees," Elbryan chanted, a litany of hope, as he dashed from
the area, down the slope toward Dundalis. The words, the hopes, fell away in a
stifled gasp as soon as the village, the charred rubble that had been the
village, came into view.
He knew that they were dead, all dead. Even from this distance, fifty
yards from the northernmost point of the village, Elbryan felt in his heart that
no one could have survived such a disaster. His face ashen, his heart pounding -
- but offering no energy to arms that hung slack at his side or to legs that
seemed suddenly as if they each weighed a hundred pounds -- the young man,
feeling very much a little lost boy, walked home.
He recognized every body that had not been caught by flames -- the parents
of his friends; the younger men, just a few years older than he; and the younger
boys and girls who had been taken from patrol by their parents. On the charred
threshold of one ruin, he saw a tiny corpse, a blackened ball. Carralee Ault,
Pony's cousin, Elbryan realized, for she was the only baby in town. Carralee's
mother lay facedown in the road, just a few feet from the threshold where lay
the baby. She had been trying to get back to Carralee, Elbryan understood, and
they had cut her down as she had watched the house, her house, burn down about
her baby.
Elbryan forced himself to stay away from such vivid empathy, realizing
that he could easily lose himself in utter despair. The task became all the
harder as he approached one large group of slain goblins and giants on the road,
as he walked past the area of heaviest fighting, as he walked past the body of
Olwan, his father.
Elbryan could see his father had died bravely, and understanding. his
father's stern and forceful way, he was not surprised. Olwan had died fighting.
But that mattered not at all to Elbryan.
The boy staggered on toward the ruin of his own house. He snorted, a
crying chuckle, as he saw that the foundation, of which his father was so proud,
was intact, though the walls and ceiling had collapsed. Elbryan picked his way
into the still-smoldering ruin. One of the back corners had somehow escaped the
flames, and when the roof had fallen in, it had angled down, leaving a clear
space.
He pushed aside a timber gingerly, when he heard the remaining roof groan
in protest and went down to his knees, peering in. He could make out two forms,
lying against the very
back corner.
"Please, please," Elbryan whispered, picking a careful path to that spot.
The goblin, the closest form, was dead, its head bashed. Unreasonable hope
pushing him on, Elbryan scrambled over the thing to the next body, sitting in
the very corner.
It was his mother, dead as well -- of smoke, Elbryan soon realized, for
she had not a wound on her. In her hand she clutched her heavy wooden spoon.
Often had she waved that thing at the children, Elbryan and his friends, when
they were bothering her, threatening to warm their bottoms.
She had never used it, Elbryan only then remembered. Not until this day,
he silently added, looking at the slain goblin.
All the images of her in life waving that spoon, shaking her head at her
impetuous son, teasing Olwan, and sharing a wink with Jilseponie as if they knew
a secret about Elbryan came flooding back to the boy in an overwhelming jumble.
He moved in further and sat beside his mother, shifting her stiffening form that
he might hug her one final time.
And he cried. He cried for his mother and father, for his friends and
their parents, for all of Dundalis. He cried for Pony, not knowing that if he
had rushed into town as soon as he had awakened, he would have spotted the
battered girl stumbling down the south road.
And Elbryan cried for himself, his future bleak and uncertain.
 He was in that corner of his house, that tiny link to what had been,
cradling his mother, when the sun went down, and there he remained all through
the cold night.

CHAPTER 7
The Blood of Mather

"The blood of Mather!" scoffed Tuntun, an elf maiden so slight of build that she
could easily hide behind a third-year sapling. Tuntun's normally melodic voice
turned squeaky whenever she got excited, and several of the others cringed and
some even put their hands over their sensitive, pointed ears. Tuntun pretended
not to notice. She batted her huge blue eyes and her translucent wings, and
crossed her slender arms imperiously over her tiny, pointy breasts.
"Mather's nephew," replied Belli'mar Juraviel, never taking his gaze from
Elbryan as the boy moved about the ruins of his house. Juraviel didn't have to
look Tuntun's way to know her pose, for the obstinate elf struck it often.
"His father fought well," remarked a third of the gathering. "Were it not
for the fomorian --"
"Mather would have slain the fomorian," Tuntun interrupted.
"Mather wielded Tempest," Juraviel said grimly. "The boy's father had
nothing more than a simple club."
"Mather would have choked the fomorian with his bare --"
"Enough, Tuntun!" demanded Juraviel; even in a shout, the elf's voice rang
like the clear chime of a bell:' It didn't bother Juraviel, or any of the
others, how loud their conversation had become, for though Elbryan was barely
fifteen yards away from them, they had erected a sound shield, and no human ear
could have discerned anything more than a few chirps, squeaks, and whistles,
sounds easily enough explained away by the natural creatures in the area. "Lady
Dasslerond has declared this one a fitting choice," Juraviel finished, calming
himself. "It is not your place to argue."
Tuntun knew she could not win this debate, so she held fast her defiant
nose and began tapping her foot on the ground, all the while staring at young
Elbryan and not liking what she saw. Tuntun had little fondness for the big,
bumbling humans. Even Mather, a man she had trained and had known for more than
four decades, had more often than not driven her away with his pretentious
purpose and stoicism. Now, looking at Elbryan, this sniveling youngster, Tuntun
could barely stand the thought of seven years of training!
Why did the world need rangers, anyway?
Belli'mar Juraviel suppressed a chuckle, for he liked seeing Tuntun
flustered. He knew the maiden would make his life miserable if he embarrassed
her now, though, so he leaped up high, his little wings beating hard, lifting
him a dozen feet from the ground; he came to rest on a low branch, a better
vantage point for watching the movements of this boy who would replace Mather.

Mercifully, Elbryan's grief had brought with it exhaustion, and the boy
had found some sleep. He remained in the house, cradling his mother, gently
stroking her hair even after the first waves of slumber had come over him. He
awoke with the dawn -- and with resolve.
He came out of the house, eyes still moist with tears, his mother's body
in his arms. Now Elbryan steeled himself against the scene of devastation. He
found strength in duty, and that duty lay in burying the dead. He put his sword
in his belt, found a spade; and began to dig. He buried his parents first, side
by side, though the task of filling the grave, of putting cold dirt on the
bodies of those whom he had most loved, nearly destroyed him.
He found Thomas Ault and several other men next, and only then did the
already weary youngster realize the scope of his task. Dundalis had been home to
more than a hundred folk; how long would it take to bury them all? And what of
those youngsters who had been slaughtered on the hill? And of the other patrol,
who had battled in the wide pine valley among the caribou moss?
"One day," Elbryan decided, and even his own voice sounded strange to him
in this surreal situation. He would spend just this one day gathering the
bodies, collecting them for a mass grave. That would have to suffice.
But then what? Elbryan wondered. What might he do after the task was
completed? Where might he go? He thought of Weedy Meadow, a day of hard
marching. He thought of pursuing the goblins, if he could find any tracks.
Elbryan shook that away immediately, knowing the rage within him, the hunger for
revenge, could cloud his judgment, could consume him. His next task was clear to
him, for the moment at least, and though it pained him immeasurably to think of
success, he knew he had to find the body of Jilseponie Ault, his dear Pony.
And so he searched, pulling corpses from the ruins of houses, collecting
the fallen and laying the bodies side by side on the field that had been Bunker
Crawyer's corral. Half the day slipped by, but Elbryan had no thoughts of food.
His search for Jilseponie grew more agitated as the hours slipped by. Soon he
was bypassing the closest bodies, leaving them where they lay, focusing his
search, though he realized that in his desperation, he was, perhaps, being
inefficient and he had little time to waste. Such a scene of carnage would no
doubt bring other scavengers -- great cats and bears, perhaps -- and Elbryan
couldn't be sure that the goblins wouldn't return. So he ran on, hauling bodies,
peeking under rubble, kicking aside piles of dead goblins to see who might be
underneath. He tried to keep a mental note of his macabre collection, tried to
match it against the people of Dundalis by sorting their names house by house.
The task overwhelmed him; he couldn't be sure, couldn't even be certain of
the identity of so many of the charred bodies. One of them must have been Pony.
By mid-afternoon, Elbryan knew he was defeated, knew he could not hope to
properly bury all the corpses. He had two score lined up in the field, and so he
decided to bury them alone. The rest...
Elbryan sighed helplessly. He took the spade, went to the field, and began
to dig. He transferred the grief, rising again within him, into rage, and went
at the earth as if it, and not the goblins, had assaulted Dundalis, had stolen
from him everything in the world that was familiar and comforting. Everything,
everyone that he loved.
His muscles complained, but he didn't know it; his stomach groaned from
lack of food, but he didn't hear it.
Even Tuntun was impressed by his stamina.
Elbryan lay down to sleep at the base of the ridge that night, outside
Dundalis. "Pony," he said aloud, needing to hear a voice, any voice, even his
own.
The elves quietly encircling him paused and cocked curious ears. Tuntun
thought the boy might be calling to his mount, but Juraviel, who had been more
attentive to the boy and his relationships, knew the truth.
"Please don't be dead," Elbryan said to the quiet wind. He closed his
eyes, wet again with tears for his mother and father, for all his friends and
all his community. "I can survive this," Elbryan said determinedly, "but only
with you." He lay back on the ground and crossed his forearms over his face. "I
need you, Pony. I need you."
"A very needy young boy," Tuntun remarked.
"Some sympathy," Juraviel scolded.
A short distance away, Elbryan sat bolt upright, confused.
Juraviel glared at Tuntun, for the female's sour attitude had forced the
words out before any sound screen could be cast up.
Elbryan drew out his short sword, glancing warily into the shadows. "Come
out and face me!" he commanded, and there was no fear in his voice.
Tuntun nodded. "Oo, so brave," she said sarcastically.
 Juraviel responded with a nod of his own, but his admiration was sincere.
The young man, so suddenly no more a boy, had passed through grief and through
fear. He was indeed brave -- it was no act -- and would willingly face whatever
enemy he found without fear of his own death.
After a few moments, Elbryan's nerves began to wear thin. He moved to the
nearest tree, stalked about it, then darted to the next. The elves, of course;
had little trouble keeping ahead of him, silent and out of sight. After a few
minutes, the young man began to relax, but, exhausted though he was, he realized
he should not remain so vulnerable here out in the open. He couldn't think of
any defensible spots nearby, but perhaps he could strengthen this one. He went
to work quietly, methodically, using the lace of his shirt, his belt, anything
he could find to secure saplings into snares:
The elves watched every move, some with respect, some with a hugely
superior attitude. Elbryan's traps couldn't catch a squirrel; certainly any elf
could run into one, untie it before it ever went off, then reset it as he
scampered out the other side!
"Blood of Mather!" Tuntun remarked more than once.
Juraviel, Elbryan's chief sponsor with Lady Dasslerond, took it lightly.
He remembered Mather at the start of the legendary ranger's career, a bumbling
boy no more adept and probably not even as resourceful as this Elbryan.
Within the hour, Elbryan had done all he could -- and that was not much.
He found a tall pine with low-hanging branches and slipped underneath them into
the natural tent. Only the keenest of eyes could have picked him out within that
blocking canopy, but of course, his field of vision likewise was severely
limited. He put his back to the tree trunk, put his sword across his lap. Nagged
by a distinct feeling that he was not alone and believing that he would be safe
if he could just make it to the dawn, he tried hard to stay awake. But weariness
overtook him, caught him where he sat, and brought his eyelids low.
The elves gradually closed in.
Something brought Elbryan awake. Music? A soft singing he could not quite
discern? He had no idea how long he had slept. Was morning close? Or had he
slumbered right through the next day?
He forced himself to his knees and crawled to the edge of the overhanging
canopy, carefully pushing aside one of the branches.
The moon, Sheila, was up, but not yet directly overhead. Elbryan tried to
calculate the duration of his rest, knew it had been no more than a couple of
hours. He paused and listened hard, certain there was something out there beyond
his vision.
A soft melody vibrated in his ear, somewhere just below his consciousness.
Quiet and sweet were the notes, but that did little to comfort Elbryan.
It went on and on, sometimes seeming to rise, as if his enemies were about
to rush out at him from the shadows but then it diminished to near nothingness
once again. Elbryan clutched the sword hilt so hard his knuckles whitened. It
wasn't Pony out there, he knew; it wasn't anything human. And to the young man
who had somehow survived a goblin raid, such a conclusion meant it could only be
one thing.
He should have stayed hidden. Rationally, Elbryan knew his best defense
lay in concealment, the best he could hope for against returning goblins was to
keep as far away from them as possible. But thoughts of his slain family and
friends, of Pony, spurred him on. Despite very real fears, Elbryan wanted
revenge.
"I told you he was brave," Juraviel whispered to Tuntun as Elbryan slipped
out from under the pine boughs.
"Stupid," Tuntun corrected without hesitation.
Again Juraviel let the insult to Elbryan pass. Tuntun had thought Mather
stupid, as well -- at first. Juraviel motioned to his companions and started
away.
 The teasing fairy song, remaining at the very edge of his consciousness,
led Elbryan on for many minutes. Then abruptly it was no more, and for Elbryan,
the sudden silence was like waking up from a dream. He found he was standing in
the middle of a nearly circular clearing, a small meadow ringed by tall trees.
The moon was above the easternmost boughs, casting slanted rays upon him, and he
realized how foolish he had been and how vulnerable he now was. Ducking low, he
started for the edge of the clearing but stopped almost immediately and stood up
straight, eyes wide, mouth hanging open.
He spun in a complete circle, watching as they stepped into the clearing's
perimeter, dozens of creatures of a type he did not know. They were no taller
than he and couldn't have weighed close to his ninety pounds. They were slight
of build, delicate, and beautiful, with angled features, pointed ears, and skin
that seemed almost translucent in the soft light.
"Elves?" Elbryan whispered, the thought coming from somewhere far back in
his memories, the stuff of legends so remote the flustered young man had no idea
what to make of these creatures.
The elves joined hands and began to walk in a circle about him, and only
then did Elbryan realize they were indeed singing. The syllables came clear to
him, though they joined into words he could not understand, distant melodic
sounds he somehow recognized as part of the earth itself. Soothing sounds, and
that made defiant Elbryan panic even more. He glanced all around, tried to focus
on individual creatures that he might discern their leader.
Their tempo increased. Sometimes they held hands, and other times they let
go long enough for every other elf to turn a graceful pirouette. Elbryan
couldn't focus; every time he sorted out an individual, some movement at the
edge of his vision, or some higher note in the chorus, distracted him. And by
the time he looked back to the original spot, the individual elf had blended
away, for surely they all looked alike.
The dance intensified, the pace, the spins. Now whenever the elves broke
apart for their pirouettes, those not spinning lifted off the ground as if by
magic -- for Elbryan could not see their delicate wings in the moonlight --
floating and fluttering to land back in place.
Too many images assailed poor Elbryan. He tried to push them away, closed
his eyes, and several times took up his sword and started a charge, meaning to
break through the ring and run off into the forest. Every attempt proved futile,
for though he started straight, the young man inevitably turned with the flow of
the dancers, going around in a circle until the multitude of images and the
sweet melody distracted him and defeated him.
He realized then he had dropped his sword and thought it might be a good
idea to pick it up. But the song . . .
The song! There was something about it that would not let him go. He felt
it, a tender vibration all along his frame, more than he heard it. It caressed
him and beckoned him. It brought images of a younger world, a cleaner and more
vibrant world. It told him these creatures were not of the evil goblin race;
these were friends to be trusted.
Elbryan, so full of grief and rage, fought that last notion fiercely and
so remained standing much longer than usual for a mere human. Gradually, though,
his resolve drained away and so did his strength. He accepted the invitation of
the soft earth.
He was lying down; that was the last thought that came to him.
"Blood of Mather," muttered Tuntun as the elvish caravan started off,
Elbryan moving with their line on a floating bed woven of silken strands,
feathers, and music.
"You keep saying that," replied Juraviel. As he spoke, the elf fingered a
green stone, serpentine, feeling its subtle vibrations. Normally such trivial
magic would prove useless against one as wise as Tuntun, who had seen the birth
and death of several centuries, but the female was clearly distracted by her
distaste for this night's work.
"I shall keep saying it!" Tuntun insisted, but her bluster was lost in the
whoosh of a sapling. The agile elf managed to slip her foot out of Elbryan's
belt snare and come dropping back to the ground, though even with her wings
fluttering hard, she hit rather unceremoniously.
Her glare at Juraviel was almost threatening as laughter erupted about
her. She knew, as did all the gathering, that there was no possible way she
could have stumbled into such a coarse trap had not a bit of magic been worked.
It wasn't hard for Tuntun to guess who had worked it.

CHAPTER 8
The Preparer

The schedule was grueling, designed to find weakness and break those who were
not fit for the daily rigors of the Order of St.-Mere-Abelle. For the four
chosen Preparers candidates, Avelyn and Quintall, Thagraine and Pellimar -- two
students from the class of God's Year 815 -- life was even more difficult. In
addition to their daily duties as first -- and second -- year students at the
abbey, they were given the extra chores of preparation for their journey to
Pimaninicuit.
After vespers, their classmates knelt to pray for one hour, spent an hour
with their letters, then retired early to meditate and sleep, to reinvigorate
their bodies for the tasks of the next day.
But after vespers, the four Preparers began a four-hour regimen, each with
an appointed master. They studied the Halo, the charts that determined the
astronomical data which would indicate the time of the showers. They learned of
seamanship, of how to navigate by the stars of the night sky -- and of how those
stars would change when the ship carrying the monks crossed certain latitudes.
They learned how to tie ropes in a variety of ways, knots necessary for the many
uses aboard a sailing vessel. They learned sea etiquette, the rules of the wide
waters, and they learned, most of all, the properties of the various stones and
of how they must prepare the stones immediately after the shower.
For Avelyn, the night lessons were the promise of his greatest
aspirations. He was with Master Jojonah most nights, and Avelyn lived up to his
reputation as the finest student to enter St.-Mere-Abelle in many decades. After
only two weeks, his predictions of astronomical shifts were perfect, and within
the first month, he could recite all the known magical stones, from adamite to
turquoise, their reputed properties, and the greatest known magical effects
which had been brought about by each.
Master Jojonah watched the young brother with mounting pride, and Avelyn
recognized that the older man considered him a protégé. There was security in
that, Avelyn came to realize, but also responsibility. Some of the other
masters, Siherton in particular, watched him closely, very closely, seeking an
excuse to berate him. It seemed to Avelyn as if he had fallen into the middle of
a running rivalry between the two older men.
That bothered the young monk profoundly. To see such human frailty in the
masters of St.-Mere-Abelle touched the very core of Avelyn's faith. These were
men of God, the men closest to God, and such petty actions on their part
diminished the very meaning of the Abellican Church. All that should have
mattered was the retrieval of the stones. Toward his fellow Preparers, young men
he would compete against for the coveted two positions of those who would
actually step onto the island of Pimaninicuit, Avelyn felt no rivalry. He
exalted in their successes as much as in his own. If they proved the better, he
believed, then that was obviously God's will. The proven better two must go to
the island; all that mattered was the success of the journey, the retrieval of
God's highest gift to humanity.
It quickly became apparent to the watching masters that Avelyn Desbris
would be one of the two. During the long hours put in at night, not one of the
other three came close to him; they were still mired in charting the stars when
Avelyn had moved on to the specific humours that caused the "magical" reaction,
having already passed through the recognition of the stones by touch as well as
sight and the recognition of their potential intensity by their brightness,
shape, and hue. After only five weeks of a four-year training program, the first
position of Preparer was nearly secured. If Avelyn did not take ill, the
competition to go onto the island of Pimaninicuit had been narrowed to three
monks fighting for one slot.
The daytime training was not as easy or as inspiring for Avelyn. He found
the many prayer rituals boring, even trite, in light of the revelations he was
finding every night. The candle ceremonies, the water bucket lines, the stone
carriers bringing material to the newest sections of the abbey, the gift of the
class of God's Year 816, simply did not measure up against the mysteries of the
God-given stones. Worst of all, and most intense of all, was the physical
training. From sunrise to noon each day; with only an hour break -- half for a
meal and half for a prayer the students assembled in a courtyard for a lesson in
the martial arts or ran barefoot along the rough walls of the abbey or swam in
the frigid waters of All Saints Bay. For months they learned to fall and roll;
they hardened their bodies by slapping, slapping, slapping one another until
their skin grew less sensitive. They walked through attack and defense routines,
slowly, endlessly, building in their sore muscles memories of the moves. For the
first year, they would study barehanded techniques, punching and grappling.
After that, the monks would move on to weapon mastery. And through it all, bare-
handed and with weapons, they would square off against each other, pounding on
each other relentlessly. Physical perfection was the goal; it was said that a
monk of St.-Mere-Abelle could outfight any man alive, and the masters seemed
determined to keep that reputation intact.
Avelyn was not the worst of his class, but he was certainly not near the
best: Quintall. The short, stocky man went at the martial training as eagerly as
Avelyn went at the nighttime studies. As the year progressed, as Avelyn further
separated himself from the other three candidate Preparers, he came to dread his
daytime matches against any of them, particularly Quintall. There was supposed
to be no anger toward an opponent, only respect and mutual learning, but
Quintall growled whenever the masters paired him against Avelyn.
Avelyn understood the man's motives. Quintall was carrying over the
nighttime rivalry. He could not beat Avelyn at the Ring Stone studies, but he
gained a measure of superiority during the day. In most of the maneuvers, the
monks were supposed to pull their punches, but Quintall often blasted the breath
from Avelyn; there was no striking above the shoulders allowed, but more than
once, Quintall knifed a "serpent hand" across Avelyn's throat, dropping him to
his knees, gasping for breath.
"Is this how you plan, to get to the island?" Avelyn quietly asked after
one such mishap. The slips had become too common; Avelyn honestly believed
Quintall meant to eliminate the competition.
The look the stocky man gave him in reply did little to allay the monk's
mounting suspicions. Quintall's grin was certainly as far from Godlike as
anything Avelyn had ever seen, and the fact that their training with weapons,
where wounds could easily become more severe, was not far away, brought goose
bumps to the scholarly young man.
What bothered Avelyn even more was that if he could recognize what was
going on here, then so could the masters, who watched every move of every
student so closely. The Order of St.-Mere-Abelle took its physical training
seriously; perhaps Avelyn was expected to defend himself against such tactics.
Perhaps this training was not so far removed from the nighttime training, which
Avelyn considered more important. If he couldn't survive in the courtyard of the
abbey, after all, what chance did he have on the high and wild seas?
He watched Quintall walk away from him, his stride so confident, even
cocky. Avelyn folded his hands and bowed his head, closed his eyes and began to
plot his defense for the next time he and Quintall were paired.
All the troubles of the day were lost each night when Avelyn went to his
true work, usually under the tutelage of Master Jojonah. Sometimes that work
entailed exhaustive study, reading text after text and reciting procedures so
many times in rapid succession that Avelyn would often continue reciting them
after he had gone to sleep. Other nights Avelyn and Master Jojonah would simply
spend on the roof, huddled against a chill ocean breeze with no fire between
them. They would sit and stare at the stars. An occasional question might pass
between them, but otherwise their vigil would be as silent as it was dark.
Master Jojonah's instructions were vague at best, but Avelyn came to understand
them in his heart. He was to watch the night sky, to learn every twinkle of
light, to become so familiar with the visible stars that he would not only know
their given names but also might create pet names of his own for them.
Avelyn loved those nights. He felt so close to God, to his dead mother, to
all humanity, living and dead. He felt a part of the larger and higher truths, a
oneness with the universe.
But the quiet awe. of stargazing placed a distant second on Avelyn's
preferred list of duties. His real zest and heart came shining through on those
nights he and Master Jojonah worked with the stones. There were nearly fifty
different types at the abbey, each with its own particular properties, and each
individual stone with its own particular intensity. Some stones had multiple
uses -- hematite, for example, could be used for simple out-of-body experiences,
for possession of another's body, for domination of another's spirit, and also
to heal another's physical wounds.
Avelyn knew all the uses of all the stones, and gradually he was coming to
sensitize his fingers to the magical humours within any stone he touched. Handed
two similar stones, Avelyn could quickly discern which was the stronger.
Jojonah nodded on each occasion as if expecting that of any student, but
in truth the master was again amazed by the young man's prowess. There were in
the abbey no more than four other monks, three of them masters and one Father
Abbot Markwart himself, who could so distinguish magical intensity, and that
fact had been the determining factor in Dalebert Markwart's ascension to the
highest rank, for his chief rival could not determine magical intensity in
individual stones.
And here before Jojonah's astonished eyes was a young novice, a man of
only twenty winters, performing feats that would tax the Father Abbot of St.-
Mere-Abelle to the very limits of his powers!
"The night is cloudy," Avelyn dared to note, one dreary and cold November
evening as he followed Master Jojonah up the winding staircase of a tower,
toward the perch where they would normally sit and study the stars.
Master Jojonah kept quiet and continued on his way, and Avelyn knew better
than to press the point.
Avelyn was even more surprised, when he came to the tower top, to find
Master Siherton and the Father Abbot waiting for them. Siherton held a small
diamond, and from it came enough light for Avelyn to discern the man's features
clearly. The young man bowed low and kept his gaze on the floor stones even when
he straightened, focusing his attention on the joints among the rocks, each
black line seeming so distinct in the harsh diamond light. He had been in St.-
Mere-Abelle for several months and had only gazed upon Father Abbot Markwart a
handful of times, usually at vespers, when the older leader would sometimes come
forth and oversee the celebration.
 The three older men moved to the edge of the tower and talked among
themselves. Avelyn tried hard not to eavesdrop, but he did catch snatches of the
conversation, mostly Siherton complaining vigorously that this was against
strict procedure. "This is neither a requirement nor a sensible test for any
first-year student," the tall and hawkish master argued.
"Not a test, but a show," Jojonah argued, * unintentionally lifting his
voice.
"A show-off, more likely," sneered Siherton. "The place has already been
secured," he went on. "Why must you press on with it?"
Jojonah stamped his foot and pointed an accusing finger at Siherton;
Avelyn was quick to look away from that uncomfortable sight. How it bothered him
to see masters bickering! Particularly when he realized that they were arguing
over him!
Now Avelyn began to recite his evening prayers so that he might hear no
more. He did catch one reference by Master Jojonah to the morning routine,
something about its being too dangerous.
Finally, Father Abbot Markwart halted the conversation with an upraised
hand. He led the two masters back to Avelyn and bade the young man to look up at
him. "It is unusual," he said calmly. "And know you, Masters Siherton and
Jojonah, that it is neither a test nor a show and irrelevant to the decisions to
be made concerning Pimaninicuit. Suffice it to say that it is for my pleasure,
for my curiosity."
He focused on Avelyn then, his face serene, comforting. "I have heard much
about you, my son," he said quietly. "Your progress has been monumental in
Master Jojonah's estimation."
Avelyn was too awestruck to beam.
"You have used the stones?"
It took a long moment for Avelyn even to register the question. He nodded
dumbly.
"You have walked high with hematite, so says Master Jojonah," Abbot
Markwart went on. "And you have lit the hearths of many rooms with the small
celestite crystals."
Avelyn nodded again. "The greatest was the hematite," he managed to say.
The Father Abbot smiled gently. "Satisfy my curiosity," he bade Avelyn. He
held out his left hand and opened it to show Avelyn three stones: malachite,
ringed with various shades of green; shining, polished amber; and a silvery
piece of chrysotile, the largest of the three resembling a sheet of straight
bars, long and narrow lying side by side.
"Do you know them?" Markwart asked.
Avelyn sorted them out in his mind. He did indeed know the magical
properties of these three, though those properties seemed oddly disparate for
Father Abbot Markwart to be presenting them together. He nodded.
Markwart handed him the stones. "Do you feel their intensity?" he asked,
looking hard into Avelyn's eyes. He needed to know the truth, Avelyn realized.
Markwart needed to be absolutely certain.
Avelyn fell into the stones, closed his eyes, and passed the items one at
a time into his free hand that he might weigh their magical strength. He opened
his eyes a moment later, staring hard at the Father Abbot, and nodded again.
"Why must we use such a combination?" Master Jojonah dared to interrupt.

Father Abbot Markwart, his eyes glowing fiercely in the diamond light, waved a
hand to silence the master. Nonetheless, Jojonah began to protest again, but
Markwart cut him short.
"I warned you of the conditions!" the old Father Abbot growled.
Avelyn swallowed hard; he had never imagined such ferocity coming from the
gentle man, the most Godly man in all the world.
 "I'll not allow the ruby to be used anywhere near St.-Mere-Abelle." Father
Abbot Markwart went on. "I'll not take such a chance for the sake of your
student's pride." He turned back to Avelyn and smiled again, but there was
little gentle or comforting in that hungry grin. "If Brother Avelyn cannot
utilize the simple stones I have given to him, then he has no right even to hold
this one." He ended by bringing forth his other hand, turning it over, and
opening it to reveal the most beautiful, perfect jewel that Avelyn had ever
seen.
"Corundum," the Father Abbot explained. "A ruby. Before I give this to
you, understand that what I ask of you is dangerous indeed."
Avelyn nodded and reached out for the jewel, too stunned to fully
appreciate the gravity in the old man's voice. Markwart handed it over.
"The puzzle is before you," the Father Abbot explained. "There are no
ships in. Sort it out." With that, he walked to the far edge of the tower and
motioned for the two masters to join him.
Avelyn studied them intently. Father Abbot Markwart appeared wickedly
intense, the gleam in his eyes seeming almost maniacal, and certainly
frightening. Master Siherton wouldn't even look his way, and Avelyn could sense
that the man desired his failure. Master Jojonah was the most intense, but in a
kinder way. Avelyn could smell the man's fear -- fear for Avelyn's safety -- and
only then did the young monk appreciate the weight of this performance and the
danger.
"Sort it out," the Father Abbot said again urgently.
Avelyn bowed his head and considered the stones. The ruby was thrumming in
his hand, its magic intense and straining for release. Avelyn knew what he could
do with that jewel, and when he stopped to consider the implications for the
other monks if he used the ruby first, the puzzle seemed not so difficult.
Father Abbot Markwart had pointedly mentioned that there were no ships in;
Avelyn knew where he was supposed to go. Malachite, amber, serpentine, ruby, in
that order.
Avelyn paused and considered the sequence and the implications. He would
have to have not one but two other stones already in use when he called forth
the powers of the ruby. He had once used two stones together -- a hematite and a
chrysoberyl, that he might walk out of body with no urge to take possession of
any form he passed. But three?
Avelyn took a deep breath, consciously keeping his eyes from the eager gazes of
the onlookers.
Malachite first, he told himself; and he walked to the outer edge of the
tower, overlooking the sea, black and thunderous a hundred yards below. Avelyn
clutched the malachite firmly, felt its magic tingling and coursing through his
hand, then his arm, and into all his body. And then he felt lighter, strangely
so, almost as light as he did when spirit-walking with hematite. He went over
the tower's edge with hardly a hesitation, his body beginning a gentle,
controlled fall.
Avelyn tried not to think of the reality of his position as the tower
walls slipped past his descending form. The cliff wall below the tower was less
smooth and far from sheer, and the young monk had to constantly push himself
away, angling down and out from the abbey.
As he neared the pounding surf, Avelyn shifted the amber into the hand
holding the malachite and brought forth its powers as well.
He touched down easily atop the surf, berating himself for not simply
walking his body horizontally across the cliff to land atop the wharf instead.
No sense in worrying about that now, he decided; so he kept the malachite
functioning until he caught his balance, then, with a deep breath, let it go.
Only the amber was functioning now, and it kept him above the water. With
another deep and steadying breath, his confidence in the stone growing, Avelyn
walked out across the dark waters, his feet barely making the slightest
depression on the rolling surface.
He looked back over his shoulder several times as he moved out from the
abbey. He had to get far enough away so that using the ruby would not pose any
risk to the structure, and even farther than that, considering the angle of the
tall tower, if he wanted the two masters and the Father Abbot truly to witness
the demonstration.
Now Avelyn called upon the serpentine, a stone he had never before put to
any real test. He knew its reputed properties, of course, but he had never
attempted to use them. Master Jojonah had done so once in Avelyn's presence,
when he had retrieved a jewel from a hot hearth, and the young monk had to focus
on that now to take faith that the serpentine would protect him.
All too soon, the moment was upon him. He was far out from shore, standing
firm on the rolling waves, the serpentine shield strong about him. Avelyn put
the ruby in his hand.

"He might have slipped under the waters," Siherton said dryly. "A great
and difficult task we will have in retrieving the stones."
Father Abbot Markwart chuckled, but Master Jojonah didn't appreciate the
levity. "Brother Avelyn is worth more to us than all the stones in St.-Mere-
Abelle combined," he asserted, drawing incredulous looks from both his
companions.
"I think, perhaps, that you have become too close to this novice," the
Father Abbot warned.
Before the old man could go on, though, his breath was stolen away as a
tremendous fireball erupted out at sea, rings of searing flames spreading out
wide from a central point that the three knew to be Avelyn.
"Pray that the serpentine shield was in full!" Markwart gasped, thoroughly
stunned by the intensity and size of the blast. The ruby was strong, but this
was ridiculous!
"I told you!" Master Jojonah said over and over. "I told you!"
Even Siherton had little in the way of rebuttal. He watched, as impressed
as his companions, as the fireball widened and churned, as the ocean hissed in
protest so loudly that the three could hear it clearly, as the top waters turned
to steam and rose in a thick fog. Brother Avelyn was strong indeed!
And probably dead, Siherton realized, though he was too shaken to make the
point at that moment. If Avelyn had concentrated so much of his energy into the
ruby, then likely he had let the serpentine shield slip. Then likely he was now
a charred thing, drifting to the bottom of the harbor.
The three waited a long time, Jojonah growing ever more concerned, but
Markwart resignedly saying, "A pity," many times, and Siherton seeming on the
verge of a chuckle.
Then came a sound not so far below them, a deep breath as one might take
after great exertion. They rushed to the edge and peered over, Siherton holding
the diamond low, focusing its light downward to reveal a haggard-looking but
very much alive Brother Avelyn, the malachite clenched tightly in one hand, his
other hand working at the wall, pulling his nearly weightless body upward.
Avelyn's brown robes were tattered and dripping; he had the stench of burned
hair about him.
He got near the tower's lip and Jojonah pulled him over.
"Some of the flames got through," a shivering Avelyn explained, bowing his
head in shame, holding his arms wide to display the damage to his robe. "I had
to let go of the amber's power briefly and dunk myself."
Only then did Jojonah realize how blue Avelyn's lips appeared. He looked
sharply at Siherton, and when the master didn't respond; Jojonah snatched the
diamond from him. The light went out for just a moment, then returned, brighter
than ever. And warmer. Jojonah held the diamond close to Avelyn, and the young
monk felt its warmth flowing into his aching, frozen form.
"I am sorry," Avelyn said to Father Abbot Markwart through chattering
teeth. "I have failed." He held his hand out limply, returning the four stones.
Father Abbot Markwart burst out into the most heartfelt laughter Avelyn
had ever heard. The cackling old man pocketed the four stories, then clenched
his empty fist, and from a ring on his finger, set with a tiny diamond, he
brought forth a light of his own. He motioned for Siherton to follow and started
for the stairs.
Master Jojonah waited until the pair had gone, then lifted Avelyn's head
so the young brother could look directly into his soft brown eyes. "You will be
one of the chosen pair who go onto the island of Pimaninicuit," he said with all
confidence.
He led Avelyn down from the tower then, to the warmth of the lower levels.
Avelyn undressed and wrapped a blanket about himself, then sat alone with his
thoughts in front of a blazing fire. Though the trial of the four stones, the
high wall, and the cold sea had exhausted him, he did not sleep that night.

CHAPTER 9
Touel'alfar

It was warm; Elbryan felt that first, felt a soft, moist sensation gently
touching all his skin. Gradually his consciousness came floating back to him, as
if from a far distant place. He spent a long while lying very still, bathing in
the comforting sensation, the warmth, holding that clear consciousness away. For
the boy who had just witnessed such carnage and loss, the semiconscious state
was preferable.
It wasn't until a memory of Dundalis, of his dead parents, slipped through
his defenses, shocking away the quiet and the calm, that he opened his olive
green eyes.
He was on a mossy bank, a gentle slope that put his head comfortably above
his feet. A warm fog hung thick about him, caressing his body and dulling his
senses. Visibility was but a few feet and Elbryan, shuffling up to his elbows,
soon realized that sound traveled little farther than that, caught up and
deadened in the tangible mist. He was in a forest, he understood -- he was ankle
deep in fallen leaves. Elbryan's instincts -- something about the air, perhaps,
the aroma told him this was not the slope leading out of Dundalis up to the
ridgeline, the slope where he had met the . . .
The what? Elbryan wondered, having no explanation of who or what those
delicate winged creatures might be.
Despite the bruises from his fights with the goblins, the minor wounds,
and the discomfort of the night spent in the corner of his ruined house, the
young man felt no pain, no soreness in his limbs. He sat up straight, then
rolled to put his legs under him. Gradually he came up in a crouch, studying the
area intently, trying to get some bearings on where he might be.
The forest was an old one, judging from the gnarled and twisted trunks of
those nearby trees he could discern through the mist. The sun seemed a gray blur
above him, a lighter spot in the sky. "West," Elbryan decided after studying it
for a moment, his instincts, his internal directional sense, sorting things out.
The boy believed the sun to be in the west, halfway from noon to sunset.
He didn't have much time before the night settled around him. He stood up,
but stayed low, feeling vulnerable despite the thick mist. His reasoning told
him to get out of that fog so that he might survey the area, but his physical
senses did not want him to leave the soothing mist.
He overruled the physical and started up the slope, thinking to get above
the gray blanket. He moved quickly, stumbling -- often and cursing himself
silently for every stick snapping sound. He climbed within the fog for only a
few minutes and came out of it so suddenly he nearly stumbled again from the
shock. At the same moment that the air grew clear about him, strong winds
buffeted him -- not gusts but a continual blow. Elbryan looked down the slope
curiously, just the few feet to the unmoving mist. It appeared to him as if the
mist were somehow blocking, or at least escaping, the winds, but how could that
be?
Elbryan's eyes widened with yet another unexplainable mystery as, he
continued to survey the ascent before him, going up, up, up from his position,
dwarfing him, making him feel totally insignificant and tiny. He knew that he
was nowhere near Dundalis; this mountain was nothing like the gentle, tree-
covered hills of his homeland. He was on the western face of but one mountain in
a great, towering range, looking down at a mist-shrouded vale, oval-shaped and
nestled between the many overlooking peaks. Not so far above him, Elbryan could
see the snow on this mountain and on all the others, a whitecapping that the
young man suspected might be perpetual.
He shook his head helplessly. Where in Corona was he? And how had he come
to this place?
The young man's eyes opened even wider then, and he glanced all around
frantically. "Am I dead?" he asked the wind.
No answer, no hint, just the murmur, an endless string of mysterious
whispers.
"Father?" Elbryan cried, and he scrambled three steps to the right, as
though that might make some difference. "Pony?"
No answer.
His heart was racing, blood pumping furiously. Soon he was gasping for
breath in utter panic. He started to run, first left, then up, then, when that
course proved too difficult, back to the right, all the while calling out for
his father or mother or for anyone.
"You are not dead," came a sweet, melodic voice from behind.
Elbryan paused for a long while, catching his breath, composing himself.
Somehow he knew the speaker was not human, that no human voice could chime so
sweetly, so perfectly.
Slowly, concentrating on his breathing more than anything else, Elbryan
turned.
There stood one of the creatures he had seen in the glade, a bit shorter
than he and probably no more than three-quarters his weight. Its limbs were
incredibly slender, but they weren't bumpy and bony like Jilseponie's had been
when she was much younger. This creature's limbs didn't look skinny, any more
than did the supple branches of a bending willow. Nor did this creature, so
tiny, seem weak. Far from it; there was a sureness, a fluid solidity to the
creature that warned Elbryan this tiny foe would be more difficult than any of
the goblins he had battled, perhaps more difficult even than the giant.
"Come back down where it is warmer," the creature bade Elbryan, "into the
mists where the wind does not blow."
Elbryan looked back at the vale and realized for the first time that no
treetops were poking through the gray canopy, as if all the trees had stopped at
exactly that level. Elbryan had the distinct feeling the mist and the treetops
were somehow connected.
"Come," said the creature. "You are not dead and are not in danger. The
danger has passed."
Elbryan winced at the reference to the tragedy of Dundalis. The way the
words were spoken, however plainly and without any apparent deception allowed
Elbryan to relax somewhat. Instead of sizing up the diminutive creature as a
potential enemy now, he regarded it in a different light. He noticed for the
first time how delicate and beautiful this one seemed, with angular features
perfectly sculpted and hair so golden that even Pony's thick, lustrous mane
could sparkle no brighter. It was as if the being shone of its own accord, an
inner light making the flowing hair glow and shimmer. The creature's eyes were
no less spectacular, two golden stars, they seemed, bright with childish
innocence, yet deep with wisdom.
The creature started down the slope but stopped at the very edge of the
fog, realizing the young man was making no move to follow.
"Who are you?" came the obvious question.
The creature smiled disarmingly. "I am Belli'mar Juraviel," it answered
honestly and motioned again toward the mist, even took another step down, so
that its shins disappeared into the grayness.
"What are you?" Elbryan said with more confidence. He suspected the
creature would confirm it was an elf, but he realized even such an honest and
expected answer would give him little information, for he really didn't know,
what an elf was.
The creature stopped again and turned back to regard him. "Do you know so
little?"
Elbryan glared at Juraviel, in no mood for cryptic talk.
"The world is a lost place, I fear," Juraviel went on. "To think we have
been forgotten in a mere century."
Elbryan's scowl melted away in curiosity.
"You really do not know?"
"Know what?" Elbryan snapped back defiantly.
"Of anything beyond your own race," Juraviel clarified.
"I know of goblins and of fomorian giants!" Elbryan insisted, his voice
and his ire rising.
Juraviel had a response for that, a remark concerning the relative
unpreparedness of Dundalis in the face of such knowledge. If this boy knew of
the evil races, then why was his village so utterly ill equipped to deal with a
simple raiding party? The elf politely kept the question to himself, though,
understanding the wounds were too raw in this young one. "And do I fit into your
knowledge of such creatures? Am I goblin or fomorian?" Juraviel asked calmly,
that melodic voice alone destroying any possible comparisons to the croaking and
growling monsters.
Elbryan chewed on his lip for a moment, trying to find an appropriate
response. Finally, he shook his head.
"Come," Juraviel bade him, the diminutive fellow turning again toward the
mist.
"You haven't answered my question."
When Juraviel turned back this time, his expression was more stern. "There
is no answer that can be conveyed with simple words," he explained. "I could
tell you a name, and you might have heard the name before, but that will give
you little of the truth and more of the myth."
Elbryan cocked his head, obviously lost.
"Your prejudices twined with the name will conflict with your
perceptions," Juraviel went on. "You asked me my own name, and that I willingly
gave, for the words 'Belli'mar Juraviel' bring no preconceptions with them. You
asked what I am, and that I cannot tell you. That is something Elbryan Wyndon of
Dundalis must learn for himself."
Before the startled young man could even ask how Belli'mar Juraviel might
have come by his name, the creature turned and strode into the mist,
disappearing from sight. Elbryan rocked back on his heels, fumbling with his
thoughts. Then he realized that he was alone again, and utterly lost. His
choices were simple, and there seemed none better than following this creature,
whatever it might be.
Elbryan sprinted down the slope, back into the grayness, and found a
smiling Juraviel waiting for him just a few feet beyond the mist's edge. At
first, Elbryan wondered why he hadn't seen the figure from outside the mist,
then he realized that he could not see the trees from out there, either, though
they were tall and thick about him now, just five steps in.
Too many questions, the young man decided, and he didn't even want to know
the answers at that moment, his curiosity overwhelmed.
Juraviel walked down the slope at an easy pace, Elbryan right behind him.
Not so far down, they moved beneath the misty canopy, and the forested valley
came clear to Elbryan. Again he was amazed. He felt warm and serene, despite all
that had happened, despite his very real fears. He didn't feel lost anymore and
if he was dead -- and he was again beginning to believe that to be the case then
death was not so bad!
For the forest, this place, was more beautiful than anything young Elbryan
had ever seen. The undergrowth was lush and thick. but seemed to part before
them as they made their way along smooth trails that always seemed as if they
would end just a few feet in front of the pair but went on, apparently in any
direction that Belli'mar Juraviel chose. The creature wasn't following a trail,
Elbryan believed, but was making one, walking as easily and openly through the
underbrush as a man might wade through a shallow pond. As soon as he recovered
from that spectacle, Elbryan was overwhelmed again, this time by the myriad
vivid colors and delicate aromas, by the chirping of countless birds, the
winsome song of an unseen brook, the bleating of some distant creature. The
whole place was a song; Elbryan's every sense was on its edge, and he felt more
alive than he had ever felt before.
His mind fought against that perception. He forced himself to remember
Dundalis, to replay the horror, that he might find a fighting edge. He thought
of escape, though he knew not where he might run, or even why he would wish to.
He looked at the low branches of a nearby tree and visualized a weapon he could
fashion from one of them, though a weapon, any weapon, would surely seem out of
place here. His stubbornness held for many minutes, a testament to the young
man's strong willpower. But even the memories of the recent tragedy could not
hold firmly to Elbryan as he walked for the first time through the forest that
was home to the elves, to Belli'mar Juraviel's folk. Dark thoughts could not be
sustained in the place where Juraviel's people danced and played.
"Can you at least tell me where I am?" a flustered Elbryan asked some
minutes later, Juraviel going along as if in a trance, ignoring the young man
completely.
After a dozen more skipping steps, the creature paused and turned. "On
your maps, if it is on your maps, this place is named simply the Valley of
Mists."
Elbryan shrugged; the name meant nothing to him, though he was glad to
learn that it might be on some map, at least. If that was true, then he probably
was not dead.
"Truly, it is Andur'Blough Inninness, the Forest of Cloud, though few of
your people would recognize that name, and those who did would not likely admit
it."
"Do you always talk in riddles?"
"Do you always ask foolish questions?"
"What is foolish about wanting to know where I am?" Elbryan asked angrily.
"And so I have told you," a calm Juraviel replied. "Does that change
anything? Do you feel comforted now, to know that you are. in a place that you
do not know?"
Elbryan growled softly and brought both his hands up to ruffle his light
brown hair.
"But then," the elf went on in condescending tones, "humans must name
everything, must map it and place it in some tidy little package and category,
that they believe they have found some measure of control over what cannot be
controlled. A false sense of godliness, I suppose."
"Godliness?"
 "Arrogance," Juraviel clarified. "My young human!" he said suddenly,
excitedly, clapping his delicate hands together in mock glee. "You are in
Andur'Blough Inninness!"
Elbryan screwed up his face and shrugged.
"Exactly my point," Juraviel said dryly, and started on his way.
Elbryan sighed and followed.
Half an hour passed uneventfully, Elbryan walking and looking about,
constantly awed by the beauty and the. richness of Andur'Blough Inninness.
Mostly, though, the boy's gaze drifted back to the. curious creature leading
him.
"Do those work?" he asked on impulse, blurting out his thoughts before he
even realized he was speaking.
Juraviel stopped short and turned to regard the obviously embarrassed
Elbryan, standing perfectly still on the trail and pointing forward at Juraviel.
Juraviel's smile calmed Elbryan considerably. "A logical question," the
creature remarked, understanding Elbryan's curiosity, and then he added, with
exaggerated relief, "at last."
Elbryan's expression soured.
"But why would you wish to know?" the ever-elusive Juraviel answered. "To
gain advantage in a battle, perhaps?" He quickly added, "Not that you and I
shall ever battle, of course," as soon as he noticed Elbryan's muscles go tense.
That declaration relaxed the young man, and so, of course, Juraviel put
in, "Except during . . ." and then paused and let the teasing thought hang empty
in the air.
Thoroughly flustered, feeling very out of place both physically and
emotionally, Elbryan took a deep breath and removed himself from his anxiety --
as simply as that. He merely let his fears and dark thoughts fall somewhere
behind him, concentrating only on the present. It might have been resignation, a
simple conclusion that he could do nothing about anything anyway, but to
Juraviel, the obvious change that came over the boy was promising. Certainly an
emotional detachment would prove healthier for this young human who had been
through so much and who had so many more trying experiences ahead of him.
With a widening smile, Juraviel started his wings fluttering, bent his
knees, and leaped into the air, a half jump, half flight to the lowest branch of
a nearby maple.
"They work," Juraviel announced, "for short hops and to break a fall. But,
no, we cannot fly as do the birds." He came back to the ground, his face
suddenly serious as he contemplated his own words. "A pity."
Elbryan nodded, in full agreement. How wonderful it would be to fly! He
imagined the wind, the green treetop canopy speeding below him . . .
"Your time here will not be unpleasant unless you make it so," Juraviel
announced immediately and grimly before the grin could even begin to spread
across young Elbryan's face.
Elbryan stared at the creature curiously, caught off guard by the sudden
change of demeanor.
"Know that there are those among my people who do not believe you belong,"
Juraviel went on, his voice stern. "There are those who do not see in you the
likeness of Mather."
"I know of no person by the name of Mather," Elbryan replied with all the
courage he could muster. Again came that feeling of detachment, summoned
consciously, an attitude that he had nothing to lose, had already lost all.
there was.
Juraviel shrugged, a flitting little movement of his slender shoulders.
"You shall," he promised. "Hear me now clearly, young one. You are not a
prisoner, yet you are not free. As long as you remain in Andur'Blough Inninness,
your conduct must be controlled, as your training shall be guided."
 "Training?" Elbryan started to ask, but Juraviel didn't pause long enough
to hear him.
"Stray from the rules at your own peril. Ask not for a second chance when
the harsh justice of the Touel'alfar falls upon you."
The threat was open and clear. Elbryan, with that typical Wyndon pride,
squared his shoulders and tightened his jaw, a movement that Juraviel seemed to
take no note of whatsoever. The name Juraviel had given his people, Touel'alfar,
had a distinctly familiar ring, and Elbryan was certain he had heard it in
conjunction with tales of the elves.
"You may rest now," Juraviel finished. "I will show to you your duties
with the rising of the sun.
"And rest well," he finished, his voice grim and somber, "for your duties
are many and will weary you indeed!"
Elbryan wanted to shout out that he would do as he pleased, when he
pleased. He wanted to proclaim his independence loudly and openly, but before he
got the first stuttered word out of his mouth, Juraviel hopped into a short
flight once more. The delicate creature stepped lightly onto a branch and jumped
again immediately, disappearing into the thick brush so completely arid easily
that Elbryan blinked and rubbed his eyes.
He stood there, in the valley of Andur'Blough Inninness, doubting what he
had seen, doubting all that had happened. He wanted his mother and his father.
He wanted Pony, that they might have another chance to warn the village before
the goblin darkness descended. He wanted ...
He wanted too much, all at once. He sat down right in the dirt at his feet
and fought hard against his emotions, for he did not want to cry.
From Juraviel's perspective, the first meeting had gone quite well. He
knew there would be many doubts raised about Elbryan, particularly by Tuntun,
and he knew how difficult Tuntun could be! But after speaking with the boy,
Juraviel was even more convinced that this was indeed the true bloodline of
Mather, and an appropriate ranger-in-training. Elbryan had that same impish
quality about him as Mather, a love and luster of life, lurking just below the
surface. The boy could control it, could find that necessary place of detachment
. . . and yet, Elbryan could not resist the question about the wings. He had to
know, and then, when he did know, he couldn't help but imagine the wonder of
soaring through the air. Just by the expression on Elbryan's face, Juraviel had
read the boy's every wonder-filled thought and had relished each of them as much
as had Elbryan.
It was good that the boy could think such things at this darkest time in
his life, was good that he could press on logically, stoically. Tuntun was
wrong, Juraviel knew without any doubt at all; this one had character.
Elbryan wanted to eat, or fall asleep, even looked for a place, a moss
bed, perhaps, where he might lie down. That notion was lost along with so many
others, fleeting thoughts banging into a wall of images. Andur'Blough Inninness,
with all its sounds and colors, all its vivid images, called to him, teased him.
Juraviel had said nothing about his remaining where he was, so Elbryan got up,
brushed himself off, and started walking again among the trees.
He spent the remainder of the afternoon caught up in the sights and
smells. He found a stream filled with yellow fish that he did not know, and
watched them for more than an hour. He spotted a deer, its long white tall
bobbing, but as soon as, he tried to get closer, it caught wind of him and
leaped away, disappearing as completely as Belli'mar Juraviel had into the
shadows.
For all the sights of that wondrous afternoon, for all the relief of
existing simply in the present and not in the most terrible past or the
uncertain future, Elbryan was even more greatly overwhelmed as dusk descended.
The hole opened in the middle of the fog that covered the elven valley,
showing the deep blue sky. Slowly that hole widened, all sides drawing away
evenly, perfectly, and Elbryan, watching in sheer amazement, knew that something
supernatural, some magic, guided the mist. Soon the sky was clear above him, the
first stars twinkling into view.
Elbryan ran about in search of an open meadow, wanting to see this
spectacle more clearly. He found a hillock, bare of trees, and scrambled up its
side, stumbling more than once, for his eyes remained fixed on the sky.
The fog had receded now to the edges of the vale, and there it hung,
blurring the dark shadows of the towering mountains, blurring the boundary
between earth and sky. Elbryan had stopped at the top of the hillock, but he
felt as if he were still going up, still ascending to those brilliant, twinkling
dots. There was a music that swelled about him, he suddenly realized, a
beautiful harmony, and it, too, seemed to draw him higher to walk among the
stars, to dwell in their light and mystery. Questions too profound flitted about
his consciousness.
He knew not how many minutes, perhaps even hours, had passed when he at
last came from that trance. The night was dark about him; his neck ached from
holding the position for so long.
Though he was back on earth, spiritually, the music remained, soft and
wonderful, emanating from every shadow, from every tree, from the ground itself.
No horrible memories could come to him while he was listening to that
elvish song, no fears could gain hold. Slowly, determinedly, Elbryan moved down
the hillock, looking back often to the sky. Then he forced himself to stare at
the darkest spot he could find, that his eyes could adjust more completely.
He paused and very carefully turned a circuit, listening intently, trying
to focus on the sound. His direction chosen, he started off, determined to find
the singer.
Many times that night, Elbryan believed that he was close Many times, he
rushed around a bend in the trail or jumped out from behind a tree, expecting to
catch an elf at song, and once he thought he glimpsed the light of a distant
torch.
The song was strong, though not loud, with many voices joining in, but
Elbryan never caught a glimpse of any of the singers, saw no elf nor any other
creature the rest of that night.
Juraviel found him at dawn, curled in a hollow at the base of a wide oak.
It was time to begin.

Part Two
PASSAGE

Often I sit and stare at the stars, wondering, wandering. They are to me the
shining symbol of all the unanswered questions of human existence, of our place
in this vast sky, of our purpose, of death itself. They are sparkles of
unanswerable wonder, and, too, the beacons of hope.
The night sky is what I liked most about my years in Andur'Blough
Inninness. At dusk, when the fog rolled back to the forest edge, it shrouded the
known world, blocked the stark mountain shadows in soft and subtle mystery, and
the stars came out shining clearer than anywhere else in all the world. That
magical mist drew me up -- my spirit and even my physical body, it seemed --
into the heavens, above the tangible world, that I might walk among the stars
and bathe in the lights of mystery, in the secrets of the universe unveiled.
In that elven forest, under that elven sky, l knew freedom. I knew the
purest contemplation, the release of physical boundaries, the brotherhood with
all the universe. Under that sky that posed to me so many questions, I dismissed
mortality, for I had become one with something that was eternal. I had ascended
from this temporary existence, from a place of constant change to a place of
eternity.
An elf may live for a handful of centuries, a human for a handful of
decades, but for both that is but the start of an eternal journey -- or perhaps
a continuation of a journey that had begun long before this present conscious
incarnation. For the spirit continues, as the stars continue. Under that sky, I
learned this to be true.
Under that sky, l talked to God.

-ELBRYAN WYNDON

CHAPTER 10
Made of Tougher Stuff

Elbryan rolled his breeches up over his knees -- not that the worn and ragged
pants would stay that way for long! -- and touched the dark water with his toe.
Cold. It was always cold; the boy didn't know why he even bothered testing
it each morning before plunging in.
From somewhere in the thick brush behind him, he heard a call, "Be quick
about it!" The words were not spoken in the common tongue of Honce-the-Bear but
in the singsong, melodious language of the elves, a language Elbryan was already
beginning to comprehend.
Elbryan glared over his shoulder in the general direction of the voice,
though he knew he would not see one of the Touel'alfar. He had been in
Andur'Blough Inninness for three months, had watched winter settle over the land
just outside the elven valley and in a few places within the enchanted vale.
Elbryan didn't know exactly where Andur'Blough Inninness was located, but he
suspected they were somewhere in the northern latitudes of Corona, beyond the
Wilderlands border of Honce-the-Bear. By his reckoning, the winter solstice had
passed, and he knew Dundalis, or what was left of the village, was likely under
several feel of snow. He remembered well the hardships, and the excitement, of
Dundalis in the winter, the gusting wind throwing icy particles against the side
of the cabin, the piles of blowing snow, sometimes so deep that he and his
father had to break through a drift just to get outside!
It wasn't like that in Andur'Blough Inninness. Some magic. probably the
same enchantment that brought the daily blanket of fog, kept the winter season
much warmer and more gentle. The northern end of the valley was carpeted by
snow, but only a few inches, and the small pond up there was frozen solid --
Elbryan had once seen a handful of elves dancing and playing on the ice. But
many of the hardier plants had kept their summer hue, many flowers still
bloomed, and this reedy bog, the one place in all the valley that Elbryan had
truly come to hate, had not frozen. The water was chilly, but not more so than
it had been on the first day Elbryan had been told to go in, back when the
season was still autumn.
The boy took a deep breath and plunged one foot in, held the pose for a
moment until the numbness took away the sting, then dipped in his second foot.
He picked up his basket, cursed when one pant leg slipped down into the water,
then waded out through the reeds. The cold mud squishing through his toes felt
good, at least.
"Be quick about it!" came the predictable call again from the brush, and
it was repeated several times, sometimes in elven and sometimes in the common
human tongue, by different voices in different places. The elves were taunting
him, the boy knew. They were always taunting, always complaining, always
pointing out his all too numerous shortcomings.
To his credit, Elbryan had pretty much learned to ignore them.
 Parting one patch of reeds, the boy found his first stone of the day,
bobbing low in the water. He scooped it out and dropped it into his basket, then
moved along to a group of nearly a dozen bobbing stones. He recognized which
ones were too high in the water, and plunged them under, trying to saturate the
spongelike rocks a bit more before taking them out. When he squeezed them,
extracting the now-flavored liquid, the elves would inevitably complain about
how little he had collected.
It was yet another part of this unchanging daily ritual.
Soon the basket was full, so Elbryan hauled it back to the bank and
collected another one. Thus it went for the bulk of the morning, for the bulk of
every morning: the boy moving carefully about the chilly bog, collecting ten
baskets of milk-stones.
That was the easy part of Elbryan's day, for then he had to haul the heavy
baskets, one at a rime, nearly half a mile to the collecting trough. He had to
be fast, for he could lose precious time at this point and then would have to
suffer almost continual insult from the unseen elves. "Five miles laden, five
miles empty," was the way Belli'mar Juraviel had described this part of his
work. Ironically, the laden section of each trip seemed the easiest to Elbryan,
for the elves often set traps for him on the journey back to the bog. These
weren't particularly nasty traps, designed more to embarrass than to injure. A
trip line here, a disguised patch of slick mud on a corner there. The worst part
of falling victim to one of the snares was hearing the laughter as he tried to
extract himself from whatever had hold of him, be it a thorny bush or some. of.
those silken elven strands, which, Elbryan found out soon enough, could be made
as sticky and clingy as a spiderweb.
He got his reward for his morning's toils when he returned to the bog to
collect the tenth loaded basket. There, every day, he would eat his midday meal
-- though at first, it was usually halfway through the afternoon before Elbryan
got a chance to taste it. The elves would set out a grand table, steaming stew
and venison, sometimes roasted game fowl, and piping hot tea that warmed the boy
from his head to his cold toes. Always it was a hot meal they set, and Elbryan
soon understood why. The elves would put the food out at exactly the same time
every day, but if he was not fast enough, "tolque ne 'pesil siq'el palouviel, "
or, "the steam would be off the stew," as one particularly nasty elf, a
deceivingly delicate maiden named Tuntun, had often chided him.
So Elbryan ran, stumbling with his ninth basket, knowing that any stone he
dropped into the dirt would be useless for that day. Carefully placing the
basket at last at the trough, the boy then sprinted full out the half mile back
to the bog. He ate a cold lunch every day at first, but gradually, as the
terrain became more familiar and his legs became stronger, as he grew to
recognize and thus avoid many of the devilish elven traps, he graduated to warm
food.
This day, Elbryan resolved, that tea would burn his tongue!
He put the ninth basket down by the trough right on schedule, took one
deep breath, clearing his thoughts and remembering the last layout of the elvish
obstacle course. For only the third time in all these weeks, the lunch had not
yet been set out when Elbryan had collected the ninth basket. On those first two
occasions, the hopeful lad had fallen victim to ever more cunning elvish traps.
"Not this time," he said quietly, determinedly; and he started his sprint.
He spotted mud at one sharp bend; without slowing, Elbryan leaped atop a
stone at the elbow of the trail and skipped off it, landing beyond the slick
area. With the aid of a slanting sunbeam poking down through a break in the
leafy boughs, he then spotted a series of nearly translucent trip lines, of
height ranging from ankle to knee, blocking one long straight section of the
trail. Elbryan considered veering off the trail, crashing through the brush,
then slowed, thinking he should just walk past this obvious trap.
 "Not today," Elbryan growled, and he put his head down and ran on, full
speed. He found his visual focus quickly, locking his eyes upon a point just one
step ahead, and high-stepped his way through the region, getting his feet up
over every single trip line.
Laughter trailed him as he sped away, and Elbryan sensed that there was
some measure of admiration in it.
Within a couple of minutes, his goal -- the bog, the basket, the meal --
was in sight; down the last stretch of path. Here, high stones lined both sides
of the trail, making passage off the path nearly impossible unless Elbryan took
a circuitous route quite deep into the underbrush.
He slowed to a near walk, opting for caution and understanding that an
extra few seconds would make no difference in the quality of his meal.
They had dug a pit -- how could they have done that so quickly? -- and had
cleverly covered it with a layer of dirt and fallen leaves, supported by a
trellis of woven sticks. Despite the addition of the pit, the path appeared
almost exactly the same as it had on all of his previous returns.
Almost exactly.
Elbryan crouched and tamped down his feet, thinking to take a few running
strides and then leap the trap. He stopped before he had really begun, though,
catching the sound of a soft titter on the breeze.
A smile widened on the boy's face. He wagged his finger at the underbrush.
"Well done," he congratulated, then he moved to the edge of the apparent pit and
pulled aside the phony trellis.
The real pit, he discovered was several feet beyond the apparent pit. He
would have leaped clear of the phony, only to drop heavily into the real one.
Now it was Elbryan's turn to laugh, as he discerned the dimensions of the
true trap, then easily leaped it, leaving the last few feet of the path, the
last expanse to the food, open to him.
"Not this time!" he yelled loudly, and there was no return laughter from
the brush, no sound at all. "Ne leque towithel!" he repeated in elvish.
Elbryan slowly passed the last tree, home free, so he thought.
Something zipped by him, just under his chin. He heard a thud at the side
and turned to see one of those tiny elvish. arrows half buried in a tree. A
second bolt whistled behind him, turning him with a start, and only when Elbryan
noticed the silvery filament trailing this arrow did he understand what was
happening.
There came a third and a fourth, all dangerously close.
"Not fair!" the boy yelled, trying to move -- and discovering that the
sticky strands were already grabbing at him. He looked at the brush helplessly,
at the steaming stew, just a few strides away.
More arrows whistled past, each trailing a strand, each tightening the web
about Elbryan, holding him from his meal.
"Not fair!" he yelled repeatedly, tearing at the strands. He managed to
pull a few down -- a couple of arrows came out of the tree, other strands pulled
free of the arrow fletchings -- but that helped only a little, as the now loose
strands clung to the boy's clothing, entangling him even more.
Another arrow came by and slashed across Elbryan's forearm as he
struggled. His protest came out as a snarl, words stolen by the stinging pain,
and he stopped his thrashing and clutched at his arm.
"Cowards!" he yelled in total frustration. "Goblinkin! Only a coward would
shoot from the boughs. Only a coward of goblin heritage would attack someone who
has no weapons with which to strike back!"
The next arrow razored painfully across the back of his neck, drawing a
line of bright blood.
"Enough!" came a stern voice from the brush, a voice that Elbryan
recognized -- and was certainly glad to hear.
 Protests, laughter, taunts all came back in reply from many different
places.
"Enough, Tuntun!" Belli'mar Juraviel demanded again; and the elf came
forth from the brush, moving to young Elbryan. Tuntun, bow in hand, came out
from across the way and moved quickly to follow on Juraviel's heels.
"Calm, my friend," Juraviel prompted poor Elbryan, the boy thrashing about
and only entangling himself even more. "The strands will not let go until Tuntun
commands them." Juraviel turned and glared at the female then, and she sighed
resignedly and muttered something under her breath.
Almost immediately, the strands began to fall from Elbryan, except for
those still tight in the line from the tree to the brush where Tuntun had tied
them off, and those which the young man had inadvertently twisted and turned
about his limbs.. Finally, with Juraviel's help, Elbryan got. free, and he
immediately stormed up to Tuntun, his green eyes flaring dangerously.
The elf looked up at him calmly, smiling, perfectly relaxed.
"I earned that meal!" the boy stormed.
"So go and eat it," Tuntun replied, and snickers came at Elbryan from
every bush. "You. needn't worry that it will burn your tongue."
"Elbryan," Juraviel warned when he saw the boy ball his fist at his side.
Tuntun held up a hand to her elvish companion, silently bidding Juraviel to let
her take care of this situation. Juraviel knew what was coming, and though he
did not like it, for he thought it too soon in the boy's training, he did on
some levels agree that the lesson might be necessary.
"You want so badly to strike me." Tuntun tittered.
Elbryan fumed but couldn't, in good conscience, punch this diminutive
creature, half his weight, if that, and a girl besides!
Tuntun's bow came up, faster than Elbryan could follow, and the elf let
fly an arrow, down the path. It struck the bowl of stew, overturning it and
making a mess of the meal. "You'll get nothing more this day," Tuntun said
sternly.
The knuckles on both of Elbryan's hands were white by this point, and the
muscles along his jaw strained taut. He started to turn away, thinking that he
had to hold his control, had to let all the insults pass, but before he got
halfway around, Tuntun slapped her bow across the back of his head.
Elbryan let fly a wide-arcing left hook as he spun back toward the elf. He
missed miserably, Tuntun ducking low under the predictable blow, and kicking him
twice in rapid succession, once on the inside of each knee.
Elbryan stumbled and squared himself; Tuntun tossed her bow aside, held up
both her empty hands, and motioned for Elbryan to come on.
The boy paused. The forest was silent, totally silent, about him, and
Juraviel made not a move nor any indication of how Elbryan should proceed.
It was his choice to make, he realized, and so he crouched low; hands out
wide, feeling his balance on the balls of his feet. He waited, and waited some
more, until Tuntun relaxed, and then he sprang like a hunting cat.
He caught the air, nothing more, and didn't even realize that the elf was
not in front of him until he heard wings fluttering behind him and felt a series
of sharp punches on the back of his head.
He wheeled, but Tuntun turned with him, staying behind him and punching
out a veritable drum roll on his upper back. Furious, Elbryan finally launched
himself sideways, putting some ground between him and his elusive opponent.
"Blood of Mather!" Tuntun said sarcastically. "He fights as any lumbering
human might!"
Juraviel wanted to respond that Mather had fought the exact same way in
the first years of his training, but he let it pass. Let Tuntun have her fun
this day, the elf decided; that would make his victory all the sweeter when
Elbryan finally proved himself.
 On cue, Elbryan came back in, measuring his steps this time, not taking
his eyes off the dancing elf. Tuntun was on the ground again, swaying slowly,
hands waving before her.
Elbryan saw an opening and let fly a combination left jab, step, and right
cross. He meant to retract the left, which missed, that he could roll his
shoulders and put some weight behind the right. He meant to do a lot of things,
to follow the combination with a shoulder tackle or another quick one-two if the
opportunity presented itself. He found, however, that as soon as his left arm
extended, his fist flying so tantalizing near Tuntun's swaying head, that his
moment of control had passed.
Tuntun turned in accord with the punch, her head fading back across to
Elbryan's right, her right hand catching the boy's wrist and pushing outward,
her left hand coming back in and catching the outside of his elbow, driving in.
As Elbryan's arm locked, and before he could even step in and begin the
cross, Tuntun turned her right wrist over and down.
Elbryan had no choice but to follow, scampering out to the left a step
before tumbling hard to the ground, crashing into one nearby bush. To his
credit, he didn't fight the roll or even try to break his fall. He went right
over and came back out low, scrambling for Tuntun's legs.
The elf straightened and stiffened, and leaned forward over the lunging
boy's head and shoulders.
Tuntun's strength surprised Elbryan, for he could not break the elf's
position, and then he was surprised even more as Tuntun locked her hands
together and brought them down hard onto the tender area just below Elbryan's
right shoulder blade.
The boy felt the strength leave that side of his body. He staggered down
again, was barely even conscious that his hold on the elf was broken. He noted
the elf's spring, heard the wings fluttering. He went up fast to his knees,
realizing that he was vulnerable. He heard a snicker, then felt the explosion as
Tuntun, half turning and landing easily on one foot right between the boy's
ankles, let fly a kick with the other, up between Elbryan's thighs to catch him
right in the groin.
The boy went down hard, clutching and groaning, feeling suddenly weak and
nauseous.
"Tuntun!" he heard Juraviel protest, and it seemed to him as if the elf's
voice had come from far away.
"He fights like a human," Tuntun answered indignantly.
"He is a human!" Juraviel reminded.
"All the more reason to kick him hard." The laughter from the forest was
painful to Elbryan, at least as much as his wounded groin. He remained on the
ground for a very long time, eyes closed, curled in a fetal position.
Finally, he opened his eyes and rolled to find Juraviel alone standing
near him. The elf offered a hand, but Elbryan stubbornly refused, struggling
shakily to his feet.
"Suffer the barbs, my young friend," Juraviel offered. "They are not
without merit."
"Lick a bloody cap," Elbryan cursed, a common insult among humans, but one
referring to powries. Elbryan hardly knew what a "bloody cap" was, and so the
meaning of his own curse was lost on him.
It wasn't lost on Juraviel, though, for the elf had battled the fierce,
evil powries many times over the centuries. Recognizing the boy's ultimate
distress and embarrassment, Juraviel generously let the insult pass.
Elbryan walked a crooked path to the food and stubbornly salvaged what he
could. That done, he hoisted the last basket and started back the half mile to
the trough.
 Juraviel followed silently, some distance behind. He wanted to make the
most of Tuntun's painful lesson, but he wasn't sure that Elbryan was in any
frame of mind to learn.
Titters came at Elbryan from the shadows several times as he walked. He
ignored them, didn't even hear them, lost in his self pity, consumed by
frustrated rage. He felt so alone and isolated, felt as if he would have been
better off had these vile elves not come and rescued him from the fomorian.
Back at the trough, Elbryan began his more difficult work. He took up one
of the saturated stones and squeezed it with all his strength over the trough.
When the porous thing was light once more, the flavored bog water extracted,
Elbryan tossed it near the basket and took up the next. All too soon, before he
had even finished with the first basket, his forearms ached from the effort.
Juraviel walked past Elbryan to the trough and dipped his cupped hands in.
He stared at the water for a moment, eyeing its hue, then sniffed its delicate
bouquet. The combination of bog water and milk-stones, as the elves called them,
produced some of the sweetest juices in all of Corona. From this raw product,
the elves would make their intoxicating wine, Questel ni'touel to the elves, but
known to the wide world simply as "boggle." The swamplike connotation of the
name was usually completely lost on the humans, who thought the term a mere
reference to their state of mind after but a few sips of the potent liquid. Not
that many humans had ever tasted the elixir, for the elves did not deal openly
in the juice. Their contacts in the wide human world were discrete and few, but
the elves did enough trading so that they could bring desired items, curiosity
pieces mostly, and a sampling of songs of the few human bards who could bring
them pleasure, into their valley.
"A good take today," Juraviel commented, hoping to draw the boy from his
sour mood.
Elbryan grunted and did not reply. He took up another stone, held it high
over the trough and squeezed with all his might, hoping to splash the juices
enough to wet Juraviel.
The elf was too quick and wary for that.
Juraviel nodded at the surprising effect, though, taking note of the boy's
gain in strength after just a few short weeks. He thought to leave Elbryan then,
but decided to try one last time to calm the boy, to put a positive meaning on
the embarrassing and painful lesson. "It is good that you have such spirit,"
Juraviel said, "and better still that you keep it under such control."
"Not so tight a rein," Elbryan replied, growling with each word. To
accentuate his point, Elbryan lifted the next stone, and, instead. of holding it
over the trough, hurled it into the brush nearby, an act of defiance and of
finality. Even if he went and retrieved it, the liquid within the stone had been
tainted and was no good.
Juraviel stared solemnly at the spot where the stone had bounced for a
long moment. He tried to view things through Elbryan's eyes, tried to sympathize
with the frustration, tried to remember the terrible tragedy the youngster had
suffered just this past season.
It was no good. For whatever had happened, today and in the days and weeks
before, this stubborn behavior could only lead to disaster. Juraviel turned on
Elbryan swiftly and suddenly, wings lifting the elf into a short hop. One hand
grabbed the back of Elbryan's hair, the other cupped under the boy's chin, and
though Elbryan, at least as strong as the elf, got his arms up to defend, when
Juraviel turned his arms, turned Elbryan's head, the boy had no chance to
resist. Juraviel took full advantage, put Elbryan off balance and kept on
twisting, angling the boy over the trough. Quite a bit of juice might be ruined,
but Juraviel figured the loss was worth it.
He put Elbryan's head under the liquid, brought him up, sputtering, then
dunked him again. The third time, he held the boy under for what seemed like
minutes, and when he brought Elbryan up and subsequently let him go, the stunned
boy fell to the ground, gasping desperately.
"I am your friend," Belli'mar Juraviel said sternly. "But let us both
understand the situation from the proper perspective. You are n'Touel'alfar, not
of the People. You have been brought into Andur'Blough Inninness to be trained
in the way of the rangers. This is fact, it has begun and there can be no
turning back. If you fail in this, if you do not prove yourself worthy of elven
friendship, you cannot be let out into the world with the knowledge you have
attained of our home and of our ways."
Even as Elbryan started to protest, horrified at the thought of becoming a
prisoner, Juraviel finished grimly, "Nor can you stay."
Elbryan's thoughts shifted to the illogic of it all. He couldn't leave,
and he couldn't stay. How could that be?
The boy's jaw drooped as he realized the only remaining possibility, as he
considered that Tuntun would carry out his execution, if Juraviel would not,
without hesitation.
Humbled, he said not a word, but went right back to his work, as Juraviel
left him.
That night, Elbryan sat upon the bare hillock that he claimed as his own,
under the starry canopy, alone with his thoughts. Images, memories of the time
o€ his past life, a few weeks that sometimes seemed as a few minutes and other
times a few centuries, careened about the edges of his consciousness. He tried
to concentrate on the present, on the simple beauty of the starry sky, or on the
future, the questions of infinity, of eternity. Inevitably, though, that led
Elbryan to thoughts of mortality and thus to the recent fate of his family and
friends.
Piled in the emotional jumble were Elbryan's mixed feelings concerning the
elves. He did not understand these creatures, so gay and full of almost childish
spirit at one moment, so deadly and stern at the next. Even Juraviel! Elbryan
had thought the elf his friend, and perhaps Juraviel was, in his own inhuman
way, but the ferocity and ease with which Juraviel had put the boy under the
trough water was amazing and frightening. Elbryan had always thought himself a
bit of a warrior. He had killed goblins, after all, though his body was far from
maturity. Yet measured against the speed and agility of the elves, the fluidity
of their movements, substituting perfect balance for lack of weight and
strength, Elbryan truly felt a novice. Juraviel, lighter and smaller, had put
him down with astounding ease, a simple movement for which Elbryan had no
counter.
So now here he was, in a land enchanting and terrifying, sharing the
forest with these creatures that he could not understand and could not defeat.
Sitting on that hillock that night, Elbryan felt as if he were alone in the
universe, as if everything around him -- the world and the elves, the goblins
that had attacked Dundalis and the folk he had known in the village were but a
dream, his dream. Elbryan realized the arrogance of that notion, an almost
sinful pride,. but he was so much out of control, so insignificant, so
vulnerable, that he suffered the barbs of his conscience for the sake of his
sensibilities.
On that hillock, under that sky, Elbryan dared to play God, and that
emotional game allowed him to sleep finally in peace and to wake with the
determination to go on, with the gritty confidence that today, this day, he
would eat hot stew for lunch. He collected his baskets and ran for the bog.
And when he slipped back beside the tenth and last basket, he saw steam
still rising from his tea.
It was difficult, exhausting work, repeated every day, endlessly. But it
was not without its benefits. As the weeks became months, and they became a
year, and then two, Elbryan was hardly recognizable as the short gangly boy that
Jilseponie had once beat up. His legs grew strong and agile from carrying loads
and dodging traps. His chest and shoulders grew broad and thick, and his arms,
particularly his forearms, bulged with iron-hard muscles.
By the tender age of sixteen, Elbryan Wyndon was stronger than Olwan had
been.
And Olwan had been the strongest man in Dundalis.

CHAPTER 11
Cat-the-Stray

"Corner table, Cat," called Graevis Chilichunk, the barkeep and proprietor of
Fellowship Way, reputedly the finest inn in all the great city of Palmaris.
Fellowship Way, or the Way, as it was commonly called, was not a large
establishment, boasting only a dozen small, private rooms and a single common
bedroom in the upstairs guest quarters, and a tavern that could hold no more
than a hundred, and that with most folks standing. But Graevis, a fat, balding
man, perpetually smiling, full of laughter and cheer and with the warmest of
hearts, had made the place the best of the cheapest, so to speak. The noble
visitors to Palmaris mostly stayed at the more haughty establishments, those
near or within the duke's castle, but for those who knew, for the lesser
merchants and the frequent wanderers, there was no better place in the world
than Fellowship Way. In the Way, a single piece of silver would get you a hot
meal, and a mere smile, whether you were a paying customer or not, would coax
from Graevis or from most of the other usual patrons or workers a marvelous
tale. In the Way the hearth was always blazing, the beds were always soft, and
the song was always loud.
The young woman sighed deeply, paused a moment, then consciously worked
hard to erase the perpetual frown from her face as she made her way to the three
men calling her from the corner table. She was aware of their eyes upon her as
she approached; always the men looked at her that way. She was in her mid-teens,
but had the shapely body of a woman five years older. She was not tall, just
four inches above five feet, but that only made her golden hair appear even
thicker and longer. She brushed at it and shook it as she crossed the room, for
with her sweat and the grease from the meal she had just helped prepare, it
clung uncomfortably to her neck.
"Ah, the pretty lady!" one of the men cooed. "Be a good girl for me," he
added, winking lewdly.
The young woman -- Cat-the-Stray, she was called by the folk of the Way --
tried unsuccessfully to hide her scowl. She caught herself quickly, though, and
covered it with a smirk she thought must have appeared, at least a little, as a
smile. Not that the seated drunk was even looking at her face; his eyes never
seemed to angle quite that high.
Another deep breath steadied her. She thought of Graevis, dear Graevis,
the man who had rescued her from a past she could not remember, the man who had
taken in a broken little girl and, with his warm smile and warm heart, helped
her to heal, at least enough so that she had become functional once again. Out
of the corner of her eye, she noticed the movements, a dance they seemed, of
Pettibwa Chilichunk, Graevis' boisterous wife. When she had first come to know
the woman, Cat had thought her simple. Pettibwa was forever laughing, dancing
with her tray from one table to the next. She got pinched at every stop, hugged
by every patron who left at night, but she never seemed to care. Indeed,
Pettibwa loved every moment of it. If she had a free hand when a man pinched her
on her ample buttocks, she would pinch him right back; often she would grab a
man along the path of her table-to-table dance and sweep him with her across the
room. And it was all done in such good fun that neither Graevis nor any suitor
of her unsuspecting dance partner ever seemed to care.
 It took grim Cat a long while to learn the truth of Pettibwa. The woman
was not simple, far from it. Pettibwa just had an unrivaled love of life and of
other people.
Cat loved her -- as much as she had loved her own mother, she believed,
for though she could not remember her own mother, she couldn't imagine loving
anyone more. Sometimes that thought only made the young woman even sadder than
usual.
She took the order from the three -- no surprise here, just three more
mugs of the cheapest ale -- then turned to the bar. She stopped short when the
winker gave her rump a solid slap, and she stood there, suffering their
laughter. She wanted to turn and lay him out flat on the floor, and anyone who
had witnessed Cat's temper knew that she could have done it easily enough, but
her eyes met the gaze of Graevis, soaking in his smile. By all his motions --
bobbing head, sparkling brown eyes -- he was silently telling her to let it
pass.
Not that Graevis wouldn't protect her. He had taken her in, heart and
soul, and loved her at least as much as he loved his own son, the surly Grady.
No man would ever take advantage of Cat while Graevis drew breath -- and
Pettibwa, too, for that matter -- but in the Way, a slap on the rump was not to
be made into a big deal, especially not considering the everyday actions of the
boisterous proprietress.
The young woman didn't look back as she made her way across the crowded
floor to get the drinks.
"Take it as a compliment, me deary," Pettibwa remarked in her "commoner
accent," as she strolled to the bar beside her adopted daughter.
"I shall have to wash my dress in the morning," Cat-the-Stray replied, her
speech not as stilted as the older woman's, though it hinted at her four years
with the Chilichunks.
"Bah, ye're always so serious!" Pettibwa replied, pinching the young
woman's cheek. "Sure'n ye've come to know the feelings ye stir in menfolk."
The young woman blushed and looked away.
"No, ye're not a pretty one, now are ye?" Pettibwa cooed with smiling
sarcasm, stroking Cat's hair. "If only ye'd smile, me girl, then all the world'd
be smiling back at ye."
The young woman closed her eyes and felt the gentle, unthreatening stroke
on her hair. Had her mother done it that way? She sensed that her hair had been
much shorter then, back when she was young and all the world seemed a great
adventure, back when the devils were just fireside stories to make, your skin
tingle or imagined demons upon whom children could wage war.
The moment ended all too soon, Cat-the-Stray tuning back to the bustle of
the lively room about her. She offered a meek smile and a nod to Pettibwa, who
returned them with a wink. The older woman collected her tray and rushed away,
blending into the continuing party just a step from the bar.
"If he's to bother ye, ye just be letting me know about it," Graevis said
to her as he put the three ales in front of her. "Ye're not to play with him if
ye're not wanting to."
Cat-the-Stray nodded and smiled weakly again. She knew that Graevis spoke
truthfully; she, and not the patrons, was in control in here. But she knew, too,
the atmosphere of the Way, and the last thing in the world the young woman
wanted was to make things difficult for Graevis and Pettibwa, her saviors.
She took up her tray and weaved across the room, getting back to the
corner table with hardly a drop spilled. Master Wink-and-Slap twisted his face
at her again and gave a breathless burst of laughter, his throat no doubt numb
from the drink. "Might that we be getting together when the hearth's burning
low," he stated more than asked. "I've a gold piece to be rid of."
Again that hoarse laughter, this time accompanied by the other two.
Cat ignored it and methodically placed the mugs on the table.
 "Two gold, then, and ye best be worth it," the dirty man offered, and when
Cat continued to ignore him, he roughly grabbed her by the arm.
Her other hand came across, hooked his thumb, and bent it back over his
wrist so quickly that the man, senses blurred by drink, hardly understood what
was happening. Suddenly he was off balance, and then he was sitting on the
floor, the pretty barmaid gliding out of reach. His friends howled with glee.
Cat suffered his insults, but couldn't dismiss the realization that
Pettibwa would have handled it differently, better. Pettibwa would have
proclaimed that two gold was an insult to a woman of her talents, and might have
gone on to insist that she would never bed a man, no matter the money, who did
not understand the meaning of the word "bath."
Pettibwa would have extracted herself delicately, subtly, turning the joke
back on the rude man, making him the fool but with such cunning that he probably
wouldn't even realize it until she was across the room.
Now, the man continued sputtering. Cat caught the word "whore," and then
she was not surprised to see Graevis, several of the other regulars in tow,
crossing the room, their faces suddenly grim.
Cat suffered the inevitable apology, the insincere man only offering it at
the end of his twisted arm. The young woman pointedly turned away then, not
wanting to watch as Graevis none too gently threw the drunk out into the street,
and then. pushed his two wretched friends out behind him.
Perhaps worst of all for the young woman were the host of other eager
young men ready to defend her honor, offering everything from a thrashing of the
man to his very life. One in particular, handsomely dressed and well groomed,
with light brown eyes that sparkled with intelligence and a calm demeanor that
hinted at good breeding, nodded the young woman's way and smiled slightly, an
invitation for Cat to name him as her champion. She eyed the young man for a
long moment -- the way he sat, the way he moved -- and she had no doubt that he
was well trained in the use of the slender sword that hung comfortably at his
hip. On a single word from her, he would thrash all three of the drunks to
within an inch of their lives.
Cat knew it, and knew that many others would have defended her as well.
That should have come as a compliment, but Cat-the-Stray hated being the center
of attention, hated the patronizing, the would-be heroes, who, with the sole
exception of Graevis, wanted exactly the same thing as the bounced drunk. Their
course was more gentlemanly, less straightforward, but. their goal through
honor, Cat knew; was precisely the same as the drunk had attempted through
offered gold.
She worked for another hour, and when her smile did not return, Graevis
graciously bade her to take an early night. Cat resisted, fearing that her
leaving would only put more work on Pettibwa's shoulders, but the older woman
pooh-poohed that notion and almost forced Cat through the side door, into the
family's private chambers. Cat looked back appreciatively, and over Pettibwa's
large round shoulder, she saw again the handsome well-dressed young man,
watching her go, lifting his glass of wine in apparent toast to her.
She scurried away, suddenly uncomfortable.
All the bustle of the common room disappeared as soon as the heavy door
was closed, leaving the young woman in happy solitude -- almost, for a moment
later, she noticed that Grady Chilichunk was in the house, moving about his
little room.
Cat sighed again; the last thing she wanted now was to spend any time near
Grady. He was a handsome man of thirty years, nearly twice Cat's age, with sharp
brown eyes. Physically, by all accounts, he was the image of his father in
Graevis' younger days, but by Cat's estimation, Grady could not have been more
different than Graevis in temperament. Since her first days in the house, Grady
had made the young woman uncomfortable. Not in a lewd way, like the drunk in the
bar, or even in a teasing way, like the handsome young man. In four years, Grady
had never once looked at the flowering young woman lustfully. To Cat-the-Stray,
his adopted sister, he was always polite, too polite. Stiff even, and as the
young woman had grown wiser to the ways of the world, she came to understand
that Grady saw her as a threat to what he considered his rightful inheritance.
It wasn't that Grady honestly cared for Fellowship Way. He was hardly ever
in the place. He liked the money the establishment brought in, though, and the
young woman already understood that if Graevis and. Pettibwa left Fellowship Way
to her, even partially, Grady would not be pleased.
"What are you doing in here?" he asked, coming from his room. His proper
speech rang in sharp contrast to the street dialect of his parents. Grady saw
himself as above that lowly station, Cat understood. He fancied himself an
important man, and frequented the more expensive establishments near the duke's
castle, and had even been in the castle on many occasions. It struck Cat that he
must know the well-dressed gentleman in the bar; perhaps the man had even come
to the Way on Grady's invitation.
"Have you no work?" he snapped at her.
Cat-the-Stray bit her lip, not liking his condescending tone. "I've done
more this one night than you have in the last two seasons," she replied.
Grady glared at her. "Some were made to work in life," he began evenly,
"others to live and enjoy."
Cat decided that it wasn't worth arguing. She shook her head, tossed her
apron to the back of a nearby chair, gathered up her cloak, and headed out into
the Palmaris night.
A chill breeze was blowing off the gulf, moaning as it wound its way past
the many two- and three-story houses of the great city. Palmaris was second in
size in all the Kingdom of Honce-the-Bear only to Ursal, the throne seat,
further upriver, though neither were reputedly as populous as the great, crowded
cities of the southern kingdom of Behren. To Cat-the-Stray, who had grown up on
the edge of the Wilderlands, in a village where ten people together was
considered a crowd, the place had, at first, been overwhelming. Even now, after
nearly four years in Palmaris, when she knew every street, where to go, where to
avoid, and when the dark image of the great Masur Delaval and the smell of brine
and the wind filled with crisp wetness had become very familiar to her, she
could not consider the place her home. Even now, surrounded by the love of the
Chilichunks, the place was not home; could never replace the fleeting image of a
cabin that she held so dear. She loved Graevis and Pettibwa, even Grady, but
they were not, could not be, her parents, and Grady would never take the place
of a true friend she sensed that she had once known.
Cat-the-Stray winced as the thoughts careened back in time. She had
blocked away so much, could only remember, fleeting images, a certain look, a
kiss that she wasn't even sure had really happened. And the name, all the names,
were gone from her mind -- that was the worst thing' of all! She could not
remember her friend's name, could not remember her own name!
"Cat-the-Stray," she whispered distastefully into the cold night air,
watching the mist of her breath float away, and wishing the title would go with
it. It had been given to her affectionately, she knew, and with all sympathy for
her pitiful predicament, and so she had not argued.
The young woman made her way around the back of the inn, down a dark alley
that inspired no fear, and up a gutter, to the one section of Fellowship Way's
roof that was not slanted. The lights of Palmaris spread wide before her, the
lights of the night sky wide above her. This was her secret place, her place of
contemplation. She came up here as often as her duties allowed to be alone with
her memories, to try to piece together who she was and where she had come from.
She remembered wandering into a village, dirty and wounded, covered in
soot and blood. She remembered the tender manner in which she had been brought
in, followed by relentless questions that she could not answer. Then came the
long journey, tagging along with a merchant caravan that had swapped crafted
items to the people of the small frontier village in exchange for pelts and
great trees that would be used as masts for the sailing ships built in Palmaris.
Graevis Chilichunk had bin on that caravan, coming north to the Wilderlands to,
pick up some very special wine, boggle by name. He had taken to the poor lost
girl -- he was the one who had given the girl the name of Cat-the-Stray -- and
the villagers had been more than willing to part with the orphan and with many
of their own weaker folk, since they were in fear of a raid similar to the one
that had sacked the neighboring settlement, Cat's settlement.
Cat rested back against a sooty chimney, the warm bricks taking a bit of
the bite from the night chill.
Why couldn't she remember the name of her village or of the one where
Graevis had found her? On several occasions, she had started to ask Pettibwa and
Graevis about it, but every time she had stopped short, some part of her fearing
to remember. Neither of her adopted parents pressed her to remember; Cat had
overheard them talking one night, making a pact that they would let the girl
heal in her own time. "Perhaps she will never remember," Pettibwa had said.
"Perhaps that would be better."
"And she's got her new name now," Graevis agreed. "Though if I'd've
thinked it would stick, I'd've chosen differently!"
And they laughed, and it was not in any way an insult to the girl, just
their joy at being able to help one so in need.
Cat loved them with all her heart. Now, though, she was beginning to think
it was time for her to figure out who she was and where she, had come from. She
looked up at the sky. Some streaks of clouds had moved in, giving a different
perspective to those stars still visible. It was often possible to look at
familiar things in a different way, Cat realized. She let the night canopy
absorb her, used it to filter back through the painful barriers. She had seen
this sky all her life and used that commonality to recall another place.
She remembered running up a forested slope, looking back to her village,
nestled in a sheltered vale, and then turning her gaze above it, to the southern
sky, to the faint colors of the Halo.
"The Halo," Cat-the-Stray muttered, and she realized that she had not seen
the phenomenon since she had come to Palmaris. Her face screwed up with concern.
Did such a thing as the Halo even exist, or was her memory a mere fantasy?
If it did exist, then her memory was correct, then she had found yet
another image of her lost life.
She considered going back into the Way and inquiring about this Halo right
then, but her concentration was broken by a sharp, metallic sound.
Somebody was climbing up the gutter.
Cat did not get overalarmed -- until she saw a familiar dirty face come
over the edge of the roof.
"Ah, me lovely," said the drunk from the bar. "So ye come up here to meet
with me."
"Be on your way," Cat warned, but the man rolled up over the edge of the
roof and started to rise.
"Oh, I'll be having me way," he said, and then Cat heard yet another man
coming up the gutter, and realized she was in trouble. They had followed her,
all three, and she knew well enough what they meant to do to her.
Quick as her namesake, the young woman leaped across and put her knee
heavily into the drunk's chest, knocking him flat to the roof. She slapped away
his grabbing hands, then slugged him twice in the face.
Then she was up, meeting the second intruder with a foot in his face as
his head came above the roof edge. His head snapped back; he started to say
something in protest, and Cat kicked him again, right in the jaw.
With a groan, he fell away into the blackness, dropping heavily atop the
last of the three, then both of them going down hard to the cobblestones. Two
kicks and two down, but it had taken too long. Even as Cat started to turn back
for the first, the drunk's arms came about her and locked about her chest,
squeezing her tight.
She felt his hot breath on her neck, smelled the stench of the cheap ale.
"There, there, me pretty one," he whispered. "If ye're not to fight me, yell
like it all the more:"
He nibbled her earlobe, or tried to, but she snapped her head back hard
into his face, stunning him.
The one memory that Cat-the-Stray held completely from her past was not an
image or a name, but a feeling, a deep frustrated rage. She let that memory out
now, on the roof of Fellowship Way in Palmaris. She let all the tears and all
the unanswered screams come out, channeled them into a level of violence that
the drunk could not have foreseen.
Her hands raked at his arms; she stuck one arm between her torso and the
drunk's arm, and let her legs fall out from under her, twisting and squirming.
"Might be more the fun if ye fight!" the drunk squealed, but he wasn't
paying attention and had let the young woman get her face close to his clenched
hands.
Cat-the-Stray clamped her teeth over one of his knuckles and bit him hard.
"Ah, ye whore!" he yelled, and lifted his other hand to pound her.
But he had broken his grip, and Cat turned and ducked, accepting the blow
across the back of her shoulders, not even feeling it through the turmoil of her
emotions. She came around and up and right back in, clawing at his face, raking
for his eyes. He pulled her hands out wide, and she used the opening to head-
butt him again.
She tore her hands free and grabbed him by the hair. He punched her hard
on the side of the head, but she only loosed a feral scream, and tugged down
hard with both her hands, while she jumped and curled one leg. She heard the
crack of bone as her knee connected with his face. He shot back up straight,
then fell over backward, but Cat was not done with him.
She came in hard, screaming all the while, driving her knee into his
throat.
"Enough!" he whined, gagged. "I'll let ye be."
That wasn't the point; Cat would not let him be. She hit him a score of
heavy blows; she kicked him, she bit him, she clawed him. Finally, battered and
bleeding from a dozen wounds, he managed to get to his feet and he ran headlong
to the ledge and dove right over it.
Following across the roof, Cat noticed that there was a light below in the
alley. She came to the edge, expecting one of the man's companions to be coming
up the gutter, and hoping that to be the case.
She stopped, taken fully by surprise. The drunk lay very still, groaning
softly, blood running from his many wounds and from the side of his broken head.
The man she had kicked from the gutter was down as well, sitting against the
building wall across the alley, one hand supporting him, the other clutching his
shin. The leg had splintered in the fall; Cat could see the jagged edge of a
bone poking through the skin.
The third drunk was up, hands high above his head and facing the wall
directly below Cat, a sword's pointed tip tight against the middle of his back.
"I heard a scream," said the handsome man from the Way, the one with the
sparkling light brown eyes, the one with the purest white smile. "I took my
leave soon after you departed," he explained, "figuring there was nothing left
in the place worth watching."
Cat felt the blood rushing to her face.
"Some hero I prove to be," the man said, bringing his sword back in a
salute to the young woman. "By my eyes, it seems as if I saved these three!"
Cat-the-Stray had no idea what to respond to the gallant man. Her rage
bubbled away, and she turned from the alley, walking back into the solitude of
the darkened rooftop.
 After a few uncomfortable minutes, the man called up to her, but before
she could answer, she heard a commotion as several others, Graevis among them,
came rushing into the alley.
Cat-the-Stray didn't want to face them. She was embarrassed, she was
ashamed, and she just wanted to be left alone: That was not possible, she
realized, nor could she slip down the other side of the building without having
half of Palmaris searching frantically for her. She took a deep breath and moved
to the gutter, then down, meeting the eyes of no one, falling into the bosom of
Pettibwa as soon as she spotted the woman, and whispering for Pettibwa to please
take her to her room.

CHAPTER 12
The Windrunner

The hours were endless, up before the dawn and not to bed again until the
midnight hour had passed. Brothers Avelyn, Quintall, Pellimar, and Thagraine
learned to survive, even thrive, on no more than four hours of sleep. They were
taught the deepest forms of meditation, where a twenty-minute break afforded
them all the recuperation they needed to press on with their training for
several more hours. They studied with their respective classmates throughout the
day, learning their religious duties and expectations, the day-to-day functions
of the abbey, and the fighting techniques. After vespers, the training shifted
to lessons concerning the sacred stones-the collection process, the preparation
ceremony immediately after collection, and the various magical properties of
each type of stone. In addition, all four were taught the ways of the sea,
spending many hours on a small boat rocking in the waves on the rough, frigid
waters of All Saints Bay.
Avelyn could not keep up with his three companions in the matters of
fighting or seamanship; and in the religious training, the young brother grew
more and more frustrated. It seemed that as every ceremony became ingrained
within him, it lost a bit of its mystery, and thus, its holiness. Were the
fifteen Holy Orders of God, the rules of righteousness, truly God inspired, or
were they merely rules of keeping order within a civilized society? Such
questions would have broken Avelyn were it not for the training after the sun
had set. For in the Ring Stones, the young man found his ideals satisfied. The
mysteries of stone magic could not be explained away by human desires of control
and order. To Avelyn, these stones were truly the gift of God, the magic of the
heavens, the promise of eternal life and glory.
So he suffered the brutal hours of the day, the fighting in which Quintall
almost always bested him. By the beginning of the third year, the level of
jealousy among the four began to rise noticeably. Avelyn and Thagraine had been
formally named as the Preparers, the two monks who would leave the chartered
ship and go onto the island of Pimaninicuit to collect and prepare the stones,
while Quintall and Pellimar would remain aboard, going onto the island only
should one of the chosen pair falter. Sea journeys were not considered safe in
God's Year 821, the year of the stone showers, and replacements might become
necessary.
Quintall was easily the best of the four in matters of martial arts. The
man was impossibly strong, his stocky frame and low center of gravity giving him
the leverage he needed to punish Avelyn endlessly. On more than one occasion,
the lanky Avelyn was convinced that Quintall meant to kill him. What better way
to get to Pimaninicuit?
The thought was more than a little unsettling to gentle Avelyn Desbris,
and he thought it ironic that Quintall's anger was no more than proof that he,
and not the stocky, ferocious man, was the better choice for Pimaninicuit.
Avelyn knew in his heart that if the situation were reversed, if Quintall and
not he had been chosen to go to the island, he would support the man with all
his heart, taking his comfort in the fact that he was allowed to go on the
journey and holding faith that the masters, and not he, were better judges of
the students. Besides, at night, and especially on those occasions when the
chosen students actually handled the stones, Brother Avelyn easily proved that
he was the proper choice. By the fourth year, none, not even the masters, could
bring forth the stone magic more completely, more effortlessly, than Avelyn.
Even skeptical Master Siherton, whatever reservations he continued to hold about
Avelyn as a fellow human being, had to admit that the man was the obvious
choice, the God-given choice, for Pimaninicuit. Siherton maintained his tight
bond with Quintall and lobbied for the younger man to be included -- as
Thagraine's replacement and not Avelyn's. By the third year, Master Siherton
also became invaluable as a mediator between the two rivals from the class of
God's Year 816, coaxing Quintall into easing up on his jealousy of Avelyn.
The first three months of God's Year 821 were dull of excitement and
anticipation throughout St.-Mere-Abelle. Nearly every day -- when the weather
was calm enough for the younger monks to go out into the courtyard -- the
students would glance repeatedly, at the dark waters of All Saints Bay, shaking
their heads whenever an iceberg floated by but always remarking that it would
not be long. As Bafway, the third month, whose end marked the spring equinox,
neared, the whispers became a contest to see who might first spot the square
sails of the chartered ship.
Bafway proved to be a long, uneventful month. The spring equinox passed,
and every time the weather seemed to be improving, another cold front would
sweep down from Alpinador, chopping the waters of All Saints Bay into frothing,
threatening whitecaps.
As the fourth month, Toumanay, slipped past, the quiet whispers became
open discussions, with even the older brothers -- even some of the masters --
joining in, the older and more experienced holy men admitting that this was
indeed a blessed time and a ship was indeed on its way to St.-Mere-Abelle. The
only secret remained the subsequent destination of that ship, for only the
masters and the four chosen monks knew the magical name Pimaninicuit.
Brother Avelyn's thoughts were full of that island and of the long voyage
ahead of him. He hardly considered the dangers, though he knew from his studies
that on several occasions, the monks who had set out for Pimaninicuit had never
returned, taken by storms or powries or by the great serpents of the Mirianic
Ocean. Even on successful voyages to Pimaninicuit, more often than not, one or
more of the four monks did not return, for disease was a very real fact of life
aboard ship. What Avelyn focused on, therefore, was the destination, the isle
itself. From the texts he had studied, he conjured images of lush gardens and'
exotic flowers, pictured himself standing in a garden with multicolored stones
raining down around him, divine music playing in the air. He would run barefoot
through the stones, would roll in them, would bask in his God.
Avelyn knew the absurdity of his fantasy, of course. When the showers
arrived, he and his fellow Preparer would be hidden underground, sheltered from
the pelting meteors. Even after the showers ceased, the pair would have to wait
some time before handling the heated stones, and then the work would be too
furious and desperate to pause and contemplate God.
But for all the harsh reality, for all the possibilities that he would not
survive, Avelyn watched the watery horizon for hint of those square sails most
intently of all. To his thinking, this was the pinnacle of his existence, the
greatest joy that a monk of St.-Mere-Abelle might know, the closest, before
death, that he could ever get to his God.
Toumanay was less than half finished when the two-masted caravel appeared,
gliding swiftly through the choppy waters to the sheltered harbor before St.-
Mere-Abelle. Avelyn spent the entirety of the morning in silent prayer, as
instructed, and was shaking so badly when he was at last summoned to Father
Abbot Markwart's chambers that Master Jojonah had to lend him a supporting arm.
The other three chosen were already in the spacious office when Avelyn and
Jojonah arrived. All of the masters of St.-Mere-Abelle were there, along with
the Father Abbot and two men Avelyn did not know, one tall and slender, the
other shorter, much older, and so skinny that Avelyn wondered if he had eaten in
a month: Avelyn quickly discerned that the taller man was obviously the captain
of the chartered vessel. He stood with an air of superiority, posture perfect,
hand on gilded rapier. He had a garish scar running from ear to chin that seemed
to Avelyn somehow gallant, and, unlike his scruffy companion, he was clean
shaven except for a neatly trimmed mustache, rolling out from the sides of his
mouth and curling up. His eyes were dark brown, so dark that the pupil was
hardly distinguishable from the iris; his hair was long and black and curly, and
under one arm he had tucked a great hat, with an upturned brim and a feather on
one side. The rest of his dress, though weathered, was rich, particularly a
golden brocade and jewel-studded baldric. That garment held Avelyn's attention
acutely, for he sensed that at least one of those jewels, a small ruby, was more
than ornamental.
Avelyn tried not to stare, confused as to why this man, who was not of the
Order of St.-Mere-Abelle, was in possession of a sacred stone -- and right in
front of Father Abbot Markwart! Surely the Father Abbot and the masters
recognized the jewel for what it was.
Avelyn calmed quickly; surely they did recognize the jewel, and
apparently, it did not bother them. Perhaps, the younger. brother reasoned, the
stone had been given as payment for the ship, or perhaps it had only been
loaned, a helpful tool for the perilous voyage. Avelyn shook it all away.
The older man caught Avelyn's attention only because of his constant
squinting, his bulbous eyes darting about nervously from man to man, head
bobbing and trembling on his turkey neck. His clothing seemed nearly as old as
he, worn out so badly in many places that Avelyn could see the darkly tanned
skin beneath. He was dirty and gray, his hair cropped short and badly trimmed,
and his beard untended. Avelyn had once heard the term "salty dog", in reference
to seamen, and he thought that appropriate indeed for this one.
"Brother Quintall, Brother Pellimar, Brother Thagraine, and Brother
Avelyn," the Father Abbot said, indicating each monk, and each, in turn, bowing
to their guests. "I give you Captain Adjonas of the good ship Windrunner, and
his first hand, Bunkus Smealy." The proud captain made no motion, but Bunkus
bowed to each in turn so violently that he nearly toppled, and would have, had
it not been for his proximity to Father Abbot Markwart's huge desk.
"Captain Adjonas knows your course," Markwart finished, "and you may trust
that his is the finest ship on the Mirianic."
"The tide will be favorable an hour after the dawn," Adjonas said in a
clear and strong voice -- a voice befitting a man of his station, Avelyn
thought. "If we miss the tide, we will lose an entire day." The stern man
steeled his gaze upon each of the four monks, letting them know right up front
that the ship was his domain. "That would not be a wise thing to do. We shall be
running against the weather at least until we have turned south of All Saints
Bay. Each day we spend this far north brings the very real chance of complete
ruin."
The four young monks exchanged glances; Avelyn was sympathetic to the
captain's wishes and actually took some comfort in the man's commanding, if
cold, demeanor. He saw that his three companions apparently didn't share his
feelings, for Quintall openly scowled as if he were offended by a mere ship's
captain speaking so forcefully to him.
Father Abbot Markwart, also sensing the sudden tension, cleared his throat
loudly. "You are dismissed," he said to the four, "to an early meal and to your
rooms. You are excused from all your duties this day, and all the ceremonies.
Make your peace with God and prepare yourselves for the task before you,"
 They left the office then, unescorted, and Quintall began openly
complaining even as the door shut behind them.
"Captain Adjonas will be in for a long journey indeed if he thinks that he
commands," the stocky man said, to the nodding replies of both Thagraine and
Pellimar.
"It is his ship," Avelyn said simply.
"A ship bought," Quintall replied immediately and brusquely. "Adjonas
commands his crew to execute the task they were paid to do, but he does not
command us. Understand that now. On the Windrunner, you and Thagraine answer
only to Pellimar, and Pellimar answers only to me."
Avelyn had no response to that. The pecking order for the voyage had
indeed been determined in just that manner. While Thagraine and Avelyn, as
Preparers, were paramount to the mission, Quintall and Pellimar had been given
higher positions on the voyage to and from Pimaninicuit. Avelyn could accept
that. If things got rough out on the seas, as expected, Quintall, the most
physically impressive of the four, would be best prepared to handle any
situation.
Avelyn left the group then, heading for his room as the Father Abbot had
ordered. He was some distance down the corridor and still he heard complaining
near the Abbot's door. He suspected that Quintall and the others kept up their
complaining for some time, long after he was kneeling beside his simple cot,
falling deep into important prayer.
The morning ceremony was the grandest event that Avelyn had seen in his
four and a half years at St.-Mere-Abelle. More than eight hundred monks, every
member of the Order, including four score who were not living at the abbey any
longer but were serving as missionaries all along All Saints Bay, lined the
docks, lifting their voices in common song. The bells of the abbey pealed
repeatedly, drawing curious onlookers from the nearby village of St.-Mere-
Abelle. The ceremony began before dawn, intensified as the sun glistened on the
horizon across the waters, then went on and on, one prayer after another, each
song louder than the previous.
The four crewmen of the Windrunner's boat, which was bouncing noisily
against the wooden dock, sat through it all with smirking faces, thoroughly
amused and certainly not impressed. As the day brightened, Avelyn could see the
rest of the thirty-man crew lining the deck of the caravel, the ship resting at
anchor some fifty yards out in the harbor.
The sailors cared nothing for this all-important mission, Avelyn realized,
beyond their payment of gold -- and whatever other trinkets Father Abbot
Markwart had included in the bargain. Avelyn considered again the sacred stone
woven into Captain Adjonas' baldric, and the thought disturbed him more than a
little. If the man, like his crew, was so obviously nonreligious, then he should
not possess such a gem, not for any reason.
This was just the first hint, Avelyn understood, and he began to suspect
that the long voyage -- they were expected to be away for near to eight months -
- would be trying in more ways than physical.
First hand Bunkus Smealy interrupted the ceremony an hour or so after the
dawn, calling out in a crusty voice, "Time for going!"
Father Abbot Markwart, closest to the craft, looked at the man, then
turned back to the suddenly quiet gathering. He motioned to Siherton, and the
hawkish master led the four chosen brothers to the edge of the dock. "Go with
God's graces," he said to each as he stepped into the rolling craft. Avelyn
nearly fell over the side, and banged his leg hard against the edge of the dock.
He caught the look that crossed between Quintall and Siherton. Quintall seemed
disgusted, but Siherton was unbending, silently imparting to the aggravated
Quintall that his. duties were paramount to his personal feelings.
Avelyn watched that stare, and the return look Quintall offered to the
master, and he understood that, while Quintall hated him and was jealous of him,
the man would indeed protect him at all costs on the journey to and from the
island.
Or at least, to the island.
Songs followed them out across the harbor, and Quintall led them up the
netting to the deck of the Windrunner, where Captain Adjonas, face as stern as
ever, waited.
"With your permission, sir," Quintall said evenly, as he had been
instructed. Adjonas gave a curt nod, and Quintall paced by him, the other three
monks in tow.
Avelyn remained at the taffrail -- an ornate railing about waist high that
encircled the stern deck -- for some time, watching the walls of St.-Mere-Abelle
diminish, as the drifting voices raised in joyous song faded. Soon the rugged
hills of the coast were but a gray blur and the Windrunner, whose mainmast had
appeared so tall and impressive in the sheltered harbor, seemed a tiny thing
indeed, dwarfed by the overwhelming power of the vast Mirianic.

CHAPTER 13
Running Fast Down a Long, Long Road

Elbryan froze as he heard the crusty snow crunch under his feet. His breath came
slow and steady, and he let that sensation spread throughout his tense body,
easing muscles, finding a solid harmony, a more perfect balance. He could see
the deer's shoulder over the next rise. Its head had not come up; it had not
heard the slight noise.
That slight noise had sounded so clearly to Elbryan!
The young man paused then to consider the extent of his progress. Only the
previous autumn, his fourth in Andur'Blough Inninness, he had not been able to
get within fifty feet of such a wary creature. Only the previous autumn, he
would not even have noticed his last slight misstep. The elves had worked him
hard, very hard. He continued his daily gathering of the milk-stones, though now
he ate a hot meal every time, easily avoiding even the most cunning of the
elvish traps. No longer was the rest of the day his own, though, for the elves
had filled his afternoons and early evenings with lessons on the ways of beast
and plant. He had learned to identify the various plants and their properties,
often medicinal. Elbryan had learned to walk nearly silently -- though he still
thought himself clumsy when measured against the graceful elves! He had learned
truly to understand and recognize the perspective of those animals watching him,
that he might better blend into the forest background. He had learned to observe
the world through the senses of each animal, understood now each creature's
fears and needs. To a squirrel and a rabbit, he could become perfectly
unthreatening, coaxing the beast to feed right from his hand. And to a deer,
perhaps the most skittish creature of all ...
He was barely a half dozen steps away, unnoticed, on open ground.
His focus went back to the task at hand, to the six most difficult steps
of all. He considered the air around him, the slight breeze in his face. Winter
was still present in this part of Andur'Blough Inninness, but its grip was fast
loosening. The deer was having little trouble finding grass through the spotty
layer of snow, and its treasurelike find had it, perhaps, a little less alert
than usual.
Elbryan couldn't suppress his widening smile. Eagerness welled within him,
the very real hope that this time he would touch that animal. He took another
step, then another.
Too quickly, with too little time to find his center of balance.
The deer's head came up, ears twitching, scanning; Elbryan's smile
vanished. He went forward with all speed, scrambling over the low ridge. He dove
and reached, desperate to slap the creature, though he knew perfectly well that
this kind of closing rush was not what Juraviel and Tuntun wanted from him.
Would his victory prove tainted?
The point was moot, anyway, for Elbryan never got close to touching the
elusive deer. A single great leap sent the beast flying away, disappearing so
quickly into the twigs and branches of the forest lining the small meadow that
it was lost to Elbryan's sight before he ever recovered from his lunging roll.
The young man shifted to a sitting position and sagged on the wet ground.
Juraviel came to him at once, the elf grinning and nodding. "Elu touise!"
Juraviel exclaimed and patted the young man on the back. "So very close!"
"I lost control," Elbryan said despondently. "At the last, and most
crucial moment, my eagerness overcame my movement."
'Ah, but you miss the point," the elf replied. "You kept control for all
this time, closing perfectly."
"I did not touch the deer!"
"But you have approached the goal," Juraviel cried. "You have just begun,
my young friend. Think not of the failure but of the triumph. Never have you
gotten this close; but you shall again, and when you do, you will know better
and will temper your eagerness."
Elbryan looked at the elf long and hard, glad for the words. Put in that
manner, this was indeed a day of celebration. He hadn't touched the deer, that
was true, but his progress beyond his last few fumbling attempts was marked.
Just as the young man's smile began to widen, Tuntun came out of the
brush, walking back from the spot where the deer had disappeared She moved right
in front of Elbryan and put her tiny hand up to his face.
He smelled the scent of deer on her fingers.
"Blood of Mather." Tuntun snorted sarcastically as she moved away, the all
too familiar phrase that Elbryan had grown tired of years before. He looked back
at Juraviel for support and found that the elf was working hard to hide his
grin.
Elbryan sighed deeply. He tried to keep a perspective on his gains. Could
any of the men of Dundalis, could his own father, have ever gotten that close to
a deer? Still, Elbryan wasn't among those folk anymore, and in measuring his
progress in all areas but physical strength against the elves of Andur'Blough
Inninness, he felt a novice indeed. It was hard for the young man to appreciate
all he had learned when he considered all he had left to learn.
Juraviel offered him a hand, and Elbryan took it, though in truth the elf
could do little to help the large man rise. There was very little boyishness
left in Elbryan's frame. He stood three inches over six feet, tall and muscular,
and his two hundred and twenty lean, strong pounds put him at more than three
times the weight of the average elf. Not that Juraviel and the others weren't
strong; it constantly amazed Elbryan how much power an elf packed into its tiny
frame, power he felt all too often in the sting of a practice sword's strike
during his sparring sessions!
Together, with Tuntun nearby but comfortably -- for herself and for
Elbryan -- out of sight, the pair enjoyed the fine day as they made their way to
the southern end of the enchanted valley, the area of Andur'Blough Inninness
where winter had never found a hold. They chatted easily, Juraviel doing most of
the talking, explaining this plant and that, talking of ways to bind a wound,
then shifting the subject back to where Elbryan had performed well and where he
had failed in his quest to slap the deer. Such were Juraviel's methods, his
enchanting and engrossing conversation techniques, that Elbryan hardly realized
this to be perhaps the most important part of his training, these daily chats,
anecdotal and enjoyable.
They walked down confusing trails, often branching, seeming to go in
circles, seeming as if they merely ended until that apparent end was reached.
Elbryan still could not navigate this area, but he was gaining some
understanding. Juraviel let him lead often and corrected him whenever he went
wrong -- which was not often any longer -- and soon the pair came into the low
dell called Caer'alfar: Elvenhome. It was a place of thick grass and lines of
trees, with houses built in the boughs above' the ground. It was a place of
flowers and song, where the forest was not so thick and the sky could be seen
from many vantage points. This was the very center of the mist that blanketed
Andur'Blough Inninness during the light of day, and yet Caer'alfar was rarely
covered, a small hole remaining in the gray canopy, unnoticeable from anywhere
but this low meadow, that the elves might enjoy the sun as well as the stars.
Dozens of elves were about this day, some sparring with practice weapons,
others dancing. Some rested back against the trees or lay comfortably in the
soft grass, drinking their sweet Questel ni'touel wine. Here and there debates
sprang up concerning the value of the spirits and what they should bring in
trade, for the spring caravan. would soon depart, a group of elves going to
their secret contacts in the frontier villages.
All in all, the peaceful scene struck a chord in Elbryan about how out of
place he was, and yet, he somehow felt as if he belonged. He had been coming
into Caer'alfar regularly since the turn of the year, and now the elves hardly
gave him a thought as he walked in. No longer was he an outcast -- he even
joined in their nightly party of song and dance -- and yet, he was so obviously
different. For Elbryan, his entire existence seemed as it had been on those
occasions many years back in Dundalis when his father and mother invited friends
to the house. Sometimes Elbryan would be allowed to stay up late, sometimes he
would even be allowed to join in their dice games for a bit before retiring. How
grown up he had felt! And yet, he was not really a part of that game, of that
group. His parents and their adult friends had accepted him with smiles that he
now realized were somewhat condescending.
So it was with the elves. He could never truly be one of them.
He and Juraviel continued their conversation until Tuntun walked by,
eyeing Elbryan derisively and tapping her smooth cheek and chin. Elbryan
understood -- so did Juraviel -- and the elf motioned for the young man to go to
his place. Above all else, the elves were meticulous about grooming. Elbryan was
expected to bathe daily, to keep his clothing clean, and since his beard was
splotchy and uneven, not yet that of a man, to keep his face clean shaven. That
was the one task which always seemed to elude the young man -- until Tuntun
inevitably pointed it out -- although, with the impossibly fine-edged elven
knife, shaving was neither painful nor troublesome.
Elbryan moved grudgingly to his lodging, a low, wide house on the bottom
boughs of a thick-limbed elm. He collected his bowl, towel, and knife, but
before he began, remembered that he had not yet asked Juraviel when they would
again stalk a deer, something the eager young man greatly wanted to know.
He slipped down from the tree house and moved about Caer'alfar, spotting
Juraviel talking with another elf across the way. Elbryan smiled sneakily and
went into a crouch. Perhaps the only creature more difficult to surprise than
the wary deer was the forest elf! Using all his skills, the young man picked his
way through the trees, scampering across the opening, finding cover wherever he
could. The other elves took little notice, hardly caring for his games, and
Juraviel and his companion remained apparently oblivious.
Elbryan put his back to a tree barely a dozen feet from the pair and
considered his next move.
"Within six strides," Juraviel was saying in the elven tongue. "Perhaps
five. And the deer did not notice."
"Well done!" the other congratulated.
Elbryan nearly fainted away. He recognized the voice, melodic and higher
pitched than Juraviel's, as that of Lady Dasslerond, the High Lady of Caer'alfar
and of all Andur'Blough Inninness.
 And she was speaking of him! Elbryan held steady his breath, paying close
attention, for though he could understand the melodic language, many individual
words might elude him if he was not careful. With Lady Dasslerond speaking of
him, the young man didn't want to miss a thing.
"In the fighting, too," she went on, "he is losing much of the clumsiness
that comes with his human heritage, and what a combination of power and grace he
shall be when one of his stature learns to wield the sword as an elf!"
Elbryan peeked around the tree to see Juraviel nodding his agreement. He
forgot all about his game of surprising the pair then, and used his stealth
ability to extract himself from the area, return to his tree house -- which was
closer to the ground than the sky -- to shave and to prepare himself for his
next sparring session, one he suddenly intended to win.
Early that evening, Elbryan walked onto the low meadow, ringed by tall,
thick pines and capped by the starry canopy. He carried only a long smooth pole,
his weapon. The elf was already there, and Elbryan breathed a sigh of relief
when he noted that it was not Tuntun waiting for him.
He could never catch Tuntun off her guard; she relished the sparring
matches, acting as if they were her personal forum for punishing the young man.
After his first few encounters with the surly elf, Elbryan had wondered what it
was that so prompted her desire to punish. Soon enough the young man had
realized that it was for no particular act but merely because he was not elvish.
His opponent this night was Tallareyish Issinshine, an older and calmer
member of the elvish band. He was a quiet sort and rarely talked with Elbryan,
though, according to Juraviel, Tallareyish had the finest singing voice in all
of Andur'Blough Inninness. Elbryan had sparred with him only once, very early
in. his training, and had been put down rather easily.
"Not this time," the young man muttered under his breath as he walked
determinedly to the center of the meadow. He moved to a spot five feet from the
sprite and bowed low, as did Tallareyish, in respect.
Elbryan presented his long pole horizontally in front of him; the elf
responded by crossing his two smaller poles, replicas of slender elvish swords,
in the air before him.
"Fight well," Tallareyish said, the proper beginning.
"And you," Elbryan answered, and on he came, full of fury and
determination. His skills had improved, so he had heard Juraviel say, and now he
meant to show how much.
He started with a cunning feint, boring in, mock spear leading, as if he
meant to overrun the diminutive elf, and then pulling to an abrupt stop and
swishing his weapon hard to the side. He had to guess, of course, which way
agile Tallareyish would spin, and even though he guessed correctly that the elf
would go to his right, his swipe was batted aside, not once but three times,
before it ever got close to hitting the mark.
Tallareyish came right back in, wooden swords dancing and weaving, cutting
figure eights and then darting straight ahead suddenly, viciously. Elbryan could
not watch them and try to react. He had to anticipate, and so he did, flipping
his spear over one hand counterclockwise and then back again, then again
clockwise, then back the other way. He hardly saw the elf's attacks, but he took
comfort in the clicking sounds as the twirling pole picked off each one.
"Well done!" Tallareyish commented, pressing the attack with every word.
Elbryan's green eyes sparkled with pride. He kept his focus, though, and
knew that he had to get off the defensive posture. He had spent many hours with
Juraviel playing the game the elves called pellell, resembling something close
to a three-tiered chess match, and he had learned well the value of taking the
initiative. At this point, Tallareyish was playing white, pressing the attack,
but Elbryan meant to reverse that.
Over went his spinning pole, clockwise to his right, then it went over
again, and then a third time, Elbryan sliding his foot further to the right with
each spin. Tallareyish turned in pursuit and came forward, one step, left foot.
Elbryan tensed.
Another step, right foot.
Elbryan caught his long pole in both hands to stop its spin. He threw it
out diagonally to his left, then let go with his left hand, planted the pole
against his right hip with his elbow, and swept it back across in front of him,
forcing Tallareyish to fall a step to the side, forcing the elf's wooden weapon
away.
The eager young man rushed through the opening, shuffling a few steps past
Tallareyish's right flank, then cut a swift pivot, grabbing his pole down low
with both hands and sweeping it back.
It swished through the air, hitting nothing, and Elbryan's eyes widened in
shock as he came to realize that Tallareyish had followed his move perfectly,
had run out right behind him. Elbryan was not surprised, therefore, when the
elf's poles smacked him, but not so hard, on the rump and the back of the knee.
His, leg nearly buckled, but he managed to swing about, his pole still flying in
a desperate, wide arc.
Tallareyish ducked low under it and double-poked his weapons, stabbing at
the young man's belly twice, though neither connected. The elf came forward
suddenly, furiously, as Elbryan halted the flow of his pole and snapped it back
to the ready, a beautiful recover.
And one that might have worked against a human or a goblin. Tallareyish,
though, was diving low before the pole ever got back in front of Elbryan. The
elf went into a headlong roll, right between the young man's widespread legs,
came up to his feet behind the yelling and turning Elbryan, and reversed his
momentum, stabbing both his poles back. over his shoulders.
Elbryan was already into his responding turn but not far enough; and the
elf's blades poked him hard in the kidneys. Waves of pain buckled the young
man's legs. He continued to swing, but he was down on one knee then, and his
blurred vision didn't even register that Tallareyish had moved again.
The next hit, a heavy slash, caught the young man across the shoulder
blades and laid him out facedown on the wet grass.
Elbryan lay still for a long, long while, his eyes closed, his thoughts
whirling. He had come in so full of hope, and had gone down so very hard.
"Well done," he heard above him -- Juraviel's voice. The young man rolled
over and opened his eyes; he was surprised to find that Tallareyish was no
longer there, that Juraviel was apparently speaking to him, was, for some reason
that Elbryan could not understand, congratulating him.
"Do you often salute corpses?" Elbryan asked sarcastically, each word
strained from the pain.
Juraviel only laughed.
"I heard you," Elbryan said accusingly.
The elf stopped his grinning and painted a serious expression,
understanding the sudden gravity and frustration in the young man's tone.
"You and Lady Dasslerond," Elbryan clarified. "You said that I had come
far in fighting as well."
Juraviel's expression hardly changed, as if he didn't understand the point
Elbryan was trying to make.
"You said that!" the frustrated young man accused.
"Indeed," replied Juraviel.
"But here I am." Elbryan spat, pulling himself to his knees and tossing
aside his pole -- a useless piece of wood, by his current estimation. He
flinched as he straightened and grabbed at his kidney.
"Here you are," Juraviel agreed, "fighting better than any, Tuntun
included, would have believed possible."
"Here I am," Elbryan corrected grimly, "spitting grass."
 Juraviel laughed aloud, something the young man obviously did not
appreciate. "Two in three," the elf remarked.
Elbryan shook his head, not understanding.
"Tallareyish's maneuver," Juraviel explained. "The roll through your legs.
Two in three attempts, it will work; the third equals complete disaster."
Elbryan quieted and considered the thought. He didn't like his odds in
that prospect -- only one in three -- but the mere fact that he had forced
Tallareyish into so desperate a routine -- and any routine that held a
reasonable chance of utter failure was indeed desperate-surprised him.
"And of the two that work, only half will gain a solid strike," Juraviel
went on. "Even worse, you have now seen the `shadow dive,' as we call it, and
you will never, ever be taken by it again."
"Tallareyish was worried," Elbryan said quietly.
"Tallareyish was nearly beaten," Juraviel agreed. "You executed the plant
of your staff on hip perfectly, and your step timing was without error. Even in
running behind you was Tallareyish forced off his balance; that is why his
passing strikes were of little consequence. Your turn, and subsequent blows,
would have forced a close-quarters parry, at the very least, and no elf desires
that with one of your size and strength."
"So he dove ahead," Elbryan concluded.
"He was stumbling anyway," Juraviel explained. "And only that stumble
allowed your mighty swipe to go over his, head." The elf gave a chuckle. "Had it
connected, I fear that Tallareyish would still be lying facedown on the field!"
Elbryan managed a smile. To think that he had almost won! To think that he
had put one of the agile elves off his balance!
"When first we began the sparring, any elf in Caer'alfar could defeat you
easily, with hardly any effort;" Juraviel said. "We drew lots each night to find
your opponent, for none, other than Tuntun, wanted to waste time in battling
you."
Elbryan chuckled, not surprised that predictable Tuntun enjoyed issuing
the beatings.
"Now your opponents are selected carefully, as we bring to you different
fighting styles, ones that we believe will offer you the greatest challenge. You
have come far."
"I have far to go."
Juraviel would not argue the point. "You heard my conversation," he
replied. "Our Lady was not exaggerating when she spoke of your potential, my
young friend. With your great strength, and the elven sword dancing style, you
will be the match of any man, of any elf, of any goblin, of any fomorian. You
have been with us only four years and a season. You have time."
That last sentence brought a strange feeling over Elbryan. He was indeed
grateful for the kind and optimistic words, and felt better, much better, about
his loss to Tallareyish. But now something else tugged at him and put him on
edge. What might come next for him? Elbryan had come to think of his life with
the elves as a permanent arrangement, had figured that he would live in
Andur'Blough Inninness for the rest of his mortal days. The notion of going out
from the enchanted valley, perhaps of walking with his own kind again, scared
him.
But also intrigued him.
Suddenly the world seemed much wider.

CHAPTER 14
Jilly

Cat-the-Stray was more than a little surprised, and embarrassed, when her would-
be rescuer ventured into the Way the following week. To his credit, the
gentleman did not approach her directly, nor did he leer at her or make any
remarks whatsoever that made the young woman feel uncomfortable.
For her part, Cat kept her distance, offering a shy smile once or twice
but mostly looking the other way. A part of her was very glad that the handsome
man had returned, but another part of her, a very large part, was more than a
little uncomfortable with the whole situation. She was closer to seventeen than
sixteen now, by all appearances no more a girl, and surely the thought of the
handsome man imparted intriguing, warm thoughts.
The man left early, tipping his floppy beret to Cat as he exited, his
light brown eyes sparkling gaily, and the young woman was both relieved and
upset that this second meeting had ended so abruptly. She shrugged it away,
though, and went about her work, giving the stranger not another thought.
He came into the Way again the following week.
Again, he was more than polite, the perfect gentleman, not pressuring Cat
to even so much as offer a greeting to him. He watched her more closely this
time, though, and whenever she looked back, his eyes widened with intensity.
His intentions were becoming quite clear.
That night, alone in her room, Cat-the-Stray found it more difficult to
dismiss her thoughts of the man. She wondered what life might be like for her in
the years to come, away from Pettibwa and Graevis perhaps. She dared to
fantasize about a life without work in Fellowship Way, about a life in a home of
her own, with children of her own. That notion inevitably led her back to images
of her own childhood, of her mother . . .
Cat-the-Stray shook her head violently, as if trying to launch the
disturbing half memories right out of her ear. Suddenly the fantasy became a
horrid thing that had no relevance to her present life. Her place was in the
Way, with Graevis and Pettibwa. This was her home and, though she did not yet
realize it, this place was also her shield against memories too terrible for her
to face.
But the handsome gentleman came back again the night after' the next, and
then again the next week, and, predictably, the whispers started that his heart
had been stolen by a certain barmaid. Cat-the-Stray tried to ignore the whispers
and the sidelong glances, but even Pettibwa, cheery cheeked and grinning slyly,
caught Cat's gaze and nodded her head in the man's direction more than once.
"Will ye wait the man at the table near to the window for me?" the
conniving woman asked often, always with some excuse close at hand.
Cat-the-Stray could hardly refuse, but she went to the man with a cold
demeanor indeed, asking what he fancied and pointedly clarifying that she wad
referring to food or drink only. Again to his credit, the gentleman did not
press the young woman, but ordered some wine only.
He was in the tavern the next week, as well, and this time, Pettibwa,
seeming a bit frustrated with the young woman, was more straightforward about
insisting that the man was Cat's to serve. Even more disheartening to the
frightened young woman, Pettibwa left the Way a short while later, only to
return with Grady.
"Gone on about long enough by me own thinking," Cat heard the woman say to
her son, to which Grady laughed and eyed Cat directly. He moved from his mother
immediately and took Cat by the hand, pulling her along toward the man who had
become such a regular in the tavern.

Cat resisted, tugging back, until she noted that half the patrons were
watching and smiling, obviously understanding what was going on.
Cat pulled her hand from Grady's grasp. "Lead on, then," she muttered
grimly, as if he were some powrie captain walking her to the plank of his
barrelboat.
The gentleman smiled in recognition of Grady when he noticed the approach.
 "My greetings to you; Master Bildeborough," Grady said, sweeping a low
bow.
"And mine to you, Master Chilichunk," Bildeborough replied, though he
didn't bother to get up from his seat and likewise bow.
"I believe that you are acquainted with my . . ." Grady fished for the
right word, and Cat; blushing fiercely, wanted to smack him on the back of the
head.
"My sister," Grady finished. "By adoption, of course."
"Of course," Bildeborough agreed. "She is much too beautiful to be a blood
sister of yours!"
Grady's lips seemed to disappear, but in truth, there was indeed little
family resemblance between him and Cat-the-Stray. The young woman was undeniably
beautiful, even in her plain barmaid's dress. Her hair was long and golden, her
eyes a startlingly clear and rich shade of blue, and her skin silken smooth and
slightly tanned. Everything about her seemed to fit perfectly -- her nose, eyes,
and mouth in perfect proportion, her legs and arms long and slender but
certainly not skinny. Her gait enhanced that perception as well, for she walked
with ease and fluidity, always balanced.
"Cat-the-Stray is her name," Grady said, eyeing the young woman somewhat
contemptuously. "Or at least, that is the name Graevis, my father, gave to her
when she was taken in."
"Orphaned?" Bildeborough asked, seeming genuinely sympathetic.

Cat nodded, and her expression told the gentleman to let it go, which, of
course, he did.
"And Cat," continued Grady; "I give to you Master Connor Bildeborough of
Chasewind Manor. Master Bildeborough's father is the brother of Baron
Bildeborough, who presides over the outlands of County Palmaris, third only to
the duke, and of course, they both to the King himself."
Cat realized that she should have appeared more impressed, but in truth,
little about society had ever meant anything to her. She smiled at the man, at
least -- and from Cat-the-Stray, that was something! -- and he returned the
grin.
"I do thank you for the introduction," Connor said to Grady, his tone
begging the man to take his leave. Grady was more than willing to comply,
practically shoving Cat right onto the man's lap. as he moved behind her. Grady
then gave a curt bow and rushed away, back to a wide-smiling Pettibwa.
Cat backed away, glanced over her shoulder, and straightened her dress.
She knew that her face was bright red, and felt the perfect fool, but Connor
Bildeborough was no novice to the ways of courting.
"For all these weeks, I have comeback to the Way hoping that you would
once again find yourself in danger," he said, taking Cat completely off her
guard.
"Such a wonderful wish," the young woman replied sarcastically.
"Well, I merely wanted to prove to you that I would be willing to rescue
you;" said Connor.
Cat did well to keep the grimace from her face. Her pride didn't
appreciate that condescending notion -- she was never one to think she needed
anyone's protection -- but again she managed to check the defensive reflex,
consciously reminding herself that this man truly meant no harm.
"Is not that the way it is supposed to happen?" Connor asked lightly,
pouring half his wine into an empty glass on the table, then handing Cat the
original glass, from which he had not yet sipped. "The young damsel, caught by
fiends, rescued by the gallant hero?"
Cat couldn't quite decipher his tone, but she was quite certain that he
was not mocking her.
 "Rubbish," Connor went on. "Perhaps I came here hoping that I would get
into a bit of a stew, so to speak, that you might rescue me."
"And why would I want to be doing that?"
Cat could hardly believe she had spoken the words, but her horror vanished
when Connor laughed heartily. "Why, indeed?" he said. "After all, I was a bit
late in getting to the three who came after you, and as I said on that night, I
believe that I did more to help their cause than your own!"
"Are you mocking me?"
"I am admiring you, young lady," Connor replied without hesitation.
"Am I to swoon, then?" Cat asked, growing bolder and more sarcastic.
"Should I run from the Way and hunt up some willing rogues, that your pride be
assuaged?"
Again came the heartfelt laugh, and this time, despite herself, Cat found
herself laughing with Connor.
"You are the spirited one," Connor remarked. "A bit of the wild pony in
you, not to doubt!"
Cat's laugh was buried in confusion as soon as she registered the analogy.
Something about the comparison, something she could not grasp, tugged hard at
her, begging for release.
"My apologies," Connor said a few moment's later. "I meant, no
disrespect."
That wasn't it at all, Cat silently replied, but to Connor, she said
nothing.
"By my heart, my remark referred not at all to your virtue, which I would
not question," Connor went on sincerely.
Cat nodded to him and managed a smile. "I have my work..." she started to
say.
"Might we walk when you are done?" Connor asked boldly. "I have waited
these weeks -- more than a month it has been just to be told your name. Might we
walk?"
Cat didn't know what to reply. "I must ask Pettibwa," she explained, only
to buy herself some time.
"I will assure her of my honor," Connor asserted and started to rise.
Cat caught him by the shoulder -- her strength seemed to surprise him --
and held him back. "No need," she assured him. "No need."
She smiled at him again, pushed the wineglass, from which she had not
sipped, back in front of him, and took her leave.
"Oh, by me eyes, he's a handsome one!" Pettibwa beamed when she caught up
to Cat in the small kitchen behind the bar area a short while later. The older
woman clapped her pudgy hands before her, her toothy smile nearly taking in her
ears. She clapped her hands again, then wrapped Cat in a bone-crushing hug.
"I had not noticed," Cat replied coolly, not returning the hug and trying
hard to keep her expression blank as Pettibwa jumped back to arm's length.
"Hadn't ye, now?"
"You embarrassed me."
"Meself?" Pettibwa said innocently. "Ah, but, me girl, ye'd never find one
sweet for ye if I left ye to yer own doings. Why, ye act like no man's a good
man!" The woman gave a bawdy wink. "So tell me now that ye're not feeling a bit
warm in yer belly, and a bit o' the tingling, when ye look upon Master
Bildeborough."
Cat blushed fiercely, all the confirmation Pettibwa needed.
"No reason for embarrassment," the woman said. "It's all so natural." She
hooked one finger in the cleavage of Cat's dress, pulled the dress lower, and
shook her hand about, so that the young woman's breasts jiggled. "And what are
ye thinkin' these are for?" Pettibwa asked.
Cat's look was one of pure horror.
 "For catchin' men and feeding babies," the woman said with a wink. "And ye
can't get the latter without the former!"
"Pettibwa!"
"Oh, go on then!" Pettibwa shot back. "I know ye think he's handsome, and
who wouldn't? And well mannered and up to his waist in the gold, too. Nephew of
the Baron himself! Why, even me Grady's speaking highly o' the man, and ye be
knowing, by Grady's words, that the man's speaking highly o' Cat-the-Stray: Sure
there's a sparkle in his eye when he's looking on ye, and his pants are gettin'
a bit too ti--"
"Pettibwa!"
The older woman laughed riotously, and Cat took the welcomed break in the
conversation to consider her words. Grady was all for this, so said Pettibwa,
but Cat knew that had little to do with the demeanor of her would-be suitor. If
she was set up with a nobleman, the gain fox Grady would be twofold. First, he'd
have the prestige of being related to the nobility, a sure invitation to any
important social event, and most of all, with Cat's needs attended to by outside
money, she could have no claim on the lucrative Fellowship Way.
So Grady's enthusiasm for this alliance held little weight with Cat, but
Pettibwa's exuberance was a bit harder to dismiss. Through all" the bawdy talk,
Cat could see that her adopted mother was indeed thrilled at the prospect of Cat
being courted, especially by one as influential and handsome as Master Connor
Bildeborough of Chasewind Manor.
So what did Cat think? That was the real question, the only one that truly
mattered, but the young woman couldn't look at things that way, not now, not
with Pettibwa beaming more brightly than ever.
"He asked me to walk with him when I am done with my
work," Cat admitted.
"Oh, do!" Pettibwa said. "And if he means to kiss ye, then let him," she
said, tapping Cat on the cheek.
"But these," Pettibwa went on, hooking her finger again and giving Cat's
breasts another jiggle, "these'll wait a bit."
Cat blushed again and looked away, pointedly did not look down. Her
breasts had developed late, just past her sixteenth birthday, and, though by any
standards they only added to her beautiful, feminine form, she had never been
comfortable with them. They represented another side of the girl, a womanly
side, sensual, sexual -- a part that Cat's free and girlish spirit was not yet
ready to admit. Graevis used to wrestle with her; had helped her to mature her
fighting skills, but once those breasts had swelled, the man stayed away. It was
as if they were a boundary between Cat and her beloved adopted father, a signal
that she was not his little girl any longer.
In truth, Cat had never been his "little girl." That had been reserved for
another man, in some place far away, a place that Cat could not remember.
She wasn't ready to grow up yet, not all the way.
And yet she couldn't ignore the advances of handsome Connor Bildeborough,
not at the price of breaking Pettibwa's heart.
She went for the walk, and truly had a lovely time, for she found that
Connor was as easy to talk to as he was to look, at. He let her lead the
conversation, down any avenue of her choosing, and was careful not to question
her too personally on any points. She told him, only that she was not really the
daughter of the Chilichunks, but had been adopted in a faraway village called,
according to Graevis, Weedy Meadow. "Have you ever heard a name so foolish?" she
said, embarrassed. She went on to explain that she didn't know where she had
been before that, didn't know of her family or her real name.
Connor left her at the door of the private quarters behind Fellowship Way.
He didn't even try to kiss her, not on the face anyway, only took her hand in
his own and put it gently to his lips.
"I will come back," he promised, "but only if you so desire."
 Before she could even consider the question or the implications, Cat found
herself mesmerized by the way his lashes closed upon those beautiful brown eyes.
He was tall -- he had to be close to six feet -- and slender, but his body was
hard with well-honed muscles. Strange emotions swirled in Cat as he lightly
touched her arm, vaguely familiar feelings but ones she had not felt in several
years.
"May I, Cat?" he asked.
"No," she replied, and his expression became crestfallen. "Not Cat," she
explained quickly, and then, with a most curious expression, she said, "Jilly."
"Jilly?"
"Or Jill," the young woman replied, seeming sincerely confused. "Jill.
Jill, not Cat. They used to call me Jilly."
Her excitement mounted with each word, and so did Connor's. "Your name!"
he exclaimed. "You've remembered it!"
"Not Cat, never Cat," Jill said firmly. "It is Jilly, Jill. I am sure of
it!"
He kissed her, right on the lips, but he backed off at once as if in
apology, as if to let her know that it was unintentional, a consequence of his
sudden joy.
Jill let it go without a word.
"You must go and tell Pettibwa," Connor bade her, "though surely I hate to
part with you now." He tipped his chin toward the door behind the young woman.
Jill nodded and moved to leave, but Connor caught her by the shoulder and
turned her about to face him.
"May I return to Fellowship Way?" he asked in all seriousness.
Jill thought of some smart remark about the tavern being a public place,
but she held her tongue and merely nodded, offering a warm smile. Theme --
followed a tense moment -- Jill, and probably Connor, not sure if he would try
to kiss her again.
He didn't; he just grabbed her hand in both of his, squeezed it warmly,
then turned and walked away.
Jill wasn't sure if she was glad of that or not.
Pettibwa accepted the news with the purest joy Jill was afraid that the
woman would be hurt when she cast off the name Graevis had given to her. Far
from it, though, the woman bubbled
with joyful tears. "Not fittin' to be calling ye Cat when ye're no more a girl,"
she said, wrapping Jill in a hug, falling over her so heavily that the strong
young woman could hardly hold them
both upright.
Jill went to bed that night full of warm feelings, some pleasant, others
too intense, too uncomfortable for her to understand. Her thoughts careened back
and forth between the realization of her true name and her experience with
Connor. So much had happened in a single night! So many emotions and memories
had come rushing to the surface. Now she knew her name: Jill -- though she knew
that she was more often called Jilly.
And that feeling when Connor was close to her! How could she sweat so much
on such a cool night?
That feeling, too, seemed something out of her past, something wonderful
and terrifying all at once.
She couldn't place it, and didn't try. She knew her name now; and
suspected that alone would begin to bring other memories back to her. And so it
was with a true jumble of emotions, a purely teenage churning of confusion, fear
and warmth, happiness and the verge of terror, that the young woman, no longer
Cat-the-Stray, drifted off to a sleep of the sweetest dreams and the starkest
nightmares.
CHAPTER 15
Miss Pippin

They, were out beyond sight of land all too quickly, rolling on great swells and
an aroma so thick that Avelyn felt as if he could float atop it. They were busy
every minute, checking and rechecking lines, adjusting the rigging, for the
Windrunner hadn't been out to deep sea in several years and Captain Adjonas was
clearly nervous. Old Bunkus Smealy seemed to take extra pleasure in ordering the
monks on any particularly dangerous task.
But the old sea dog couldn't fathom the level of physical training these
four men had endured. He ordered Thagraine and Quintall up the yard of the
mainmast, and so up they went, faster than any crewman on the Windrunner. Smealy
sent them far out on the yard, and they went easily, hanging under, hand over
hand, adjusting the rigging and then sliding down the ropes to stand on the deck
right beside the first hand.
"Well, next for ye --" Smealy began, but Quintall cut him short.
"Take care, Master Smealy," the monk said calmly. "We are as part of the
crew, and as such, will work --" He paused, his stare boring into the man. They
were about the same height, but Quintall carried an extra fifty pounds, every
one of them hardened muscle.. "-- as the crew works," Quintall finished
ominously. "If you entertain thoughts of working the brothers of St.-Mere-Abelle
beyond what you demand of the regular crew, then accompany those thoughts with
visions of swimming."
Smealy squinted perhaps a dozen times in the next few seconds and lifted a
hand to scratch hard at his gray hair -- to kill a few lice, Avelyn figured. The
twitchy little man looked across the open deck, past the staring eyes of the
crewmen, to the tall, regal figure of Captain Adjonas.
Quintall suspected that he and his fellow brothers might be fighting very soon,
but so be it. He had to set the ground rules right away or this would be a long
and perilous journey indeed. This was Adjonas' ship, that Quintall did not
dispute, but the abbey had paid well for this transport and the brothers had not
been put aboard as slaves.
To the relief of the monks -- though Quintall felt a bit of disappointment
Adjonas tipped his great feathered hat to the monk and nodded slightly, a clear
sign of respect.
Quintall glowered at Smealy, the old sea dog trembling with frustration.
Smealy glanced at each of the four monks, spat something unintelligible, then
stormed away, taking out his rage on the nearest crewmen.
"You took a chance," Pellimar remarked.
Quintall nodded. "Would you have us treated as, cattle?" he asked. "We
would all be dead before we ever reached Pimaninicuit." He grunted and started
away.
"Not all, perhaps," Thagraine remarked, stopping Quintall short.
Avelyn and Pellimar held their breath at the bold words. The monks still
carried some jealousy, Avelyn -- and obviously Thagraine -- realized, concerning
which pair would go onto Pimaninicuit.
Quintall turned slowly. Two long strides brought him right up to
Thagraine. "You might have fallen from the mast," he said bluntly, his tone
making the statement sound like a threat. "And then I would journey to the
island."
"But I did not fall."
"And I did not push you," Quintall stated. "You have been given your duty,
and I mine. I will get you to Pimaninicuit." He glanced Avelyn's way. "Both of
you, and if Captain Adjonas or Bunker Smealy -- or any others aboard the
Windrunner -- conspire differently, they will answer to Quintall."
"And to Pellimar," the fourth monk added.
"And to Thagraine," the man said, smiling.
 "And to Avelyn," Avelyn was compelled to add. The bond was immediate and
secure, the four monks putting aside their personal squabbles in light of
potentially more dangerous enemies. Avelyn, who had worked so closely with
Quintall for more than four years, found that he believed the man wholly. He
looked at Thagraine, who by fate had become his most trusted ally, and he smiled
when he noted that the man and Pellimar, who had been together a year longer
than had Avelyn and Quintall, had clasped wrists firmly, staring eye to eye.
It was indeed a good start.
No land came in sight for three days, the Windjammer making a direct run
to the southeastern point of the Gulf of Corona, the northern tip of the region
known as the Mantis Arm. They saw a light after dusk on that third day, far to
the south but obviously high above the waterline.
"Pireth Tulme," Captain Adjonas explained to his guests. "The Coastpoint
Guards."
"Whatever it may be," Pellimar put in, "it is good to see a sign of land
again."
"You will be seeing it often over the next two weeks," Adjonas replied.
"We will run the length of the Mantis Arm near to the shore, then to deeper
water in a straight run to Freeport and Entel."
"And then?" Pellimar's Voice was full of anticipation.
"And then we have just begun," Quintall put in firmly. The stocky man knew
their course better than his three companions, as part of his private training
with Master Siherton. The dangers of such a voyage were many, but perhaps most
prominent among them was the danger to the mind. Pellimar seemed too eager, as
if he expected Pimaninicuit to be quite close to Entel, but in truth, the
Windjammer would likely spend the better part of four months getting to the
island, and that was assuming favorable winds. Even if they arrived at
Pimaninicuit early, they would only spend their days encircling the island,
awaiting the day of the stone showers.
"Then we turn more directly south," Captain Adjonas added.
"In sight of land?" Pellimar asked.
Adjonas scoffed at the absurd notion. "The only land to be seen would be
the coast of Behren."
"We are not at war with Behren," Pellimar promptly put in.
"But the southern kingdom has little control over its raiders," Adjonas
explained. "To be in sight of land would mean to be in sight of pirates." He
snorted and walked away, but paused, looked back, and motioned to them.
The four began to follow.
"Only you," Adjonas said, pointing to Quintall.
The stocky man followed the captain into his private quarters, leaving his
three curious companions out on the deck with the cold, wet wind and the distant
light of Pireth Tulme.
Quintall returned to them much later that evening, belowdecks in the
closet-sized. compartment they now called their home. There was something weird
about his smile, Avelyn noted, something misplaced..
Quintall took Thagraine's arm and led him out of the cubby, then the
stocky man returned alone.
"Where?" Pellimar asked.
"You will learn soon enough'," Quintall replied "I think two is enough for
one night." He moved to his bunk as Pellimar and Avelyn exchanged unknowing
shrugs. Their curiosity only heightened as Quintall chuckled repeatedly, until
he fell away into a sound slumber.
Thagraine was likewise chuckling the next day on the deck. Avelyn wasn't
sure the man had ever rejoined them the previous night, and indeed he looked
haggard but certainly not displeased. The stoic Avelyn dismissed it, all of it.
Apparently Quintall and Thagraine's secret posed no threat, so whatever it might
be really didn't matter. For now Avelyn, had his duties, and his goal was
growing closer with each gliding league.
Pellimar, though, was not so patient. He prodded Quintall repeatedly, and
when he got nowhere with the stocky man, he went to his older friend. Finally,
after the bright sun had nearly reached its zenith, Quintall and Thagraine
exchanged nods.
"The ceremony of necessity," Quintall explained with a grin -- a rather
lewd grin, Avelyn thought.
"A fine one," Thagraine put in. "Not so long in the trade, I'd guess."
Avelyn narrowed his eyes, trying vainly to decipher the cryptic talk.
"Not here," Pellimar breathed hopefully, having apparently figured it all
out. Avelyn looked at him for some clue.
"Only for Captain Adjonas," Quintall explained, "and for the four of us,
who have earned the captain's respect."
"Not so long a trip then!" Pellimar cried. "Direct me!"
"Ah, but, you have rigging to tie," Thagraine teased.
"And I'll work all the better after the --"
"Ceremony of necessity," Thagraine and Quintall said together, laughing.
Quintall nodded his approval and Thagraine led the eager Pellimar away.
"What are you talking about?" Avelyn demanded.
"Poor dear Avelyn," chided Quintall. "Sheltered in your mother's arms, you
have never learned of such treasures."
Quintall would say no more about it, leaving Avelyn chewing his lip in
frustration for the rest of the afternoon. Avelyn stubbornly decided that he
would ask no more, that he would overcome his curiosity, treating it as a
weakness.
That discipline lasted only until the four took their supper, a bowl of
lumpy, lukewarm porridge in the tight quarters of their small room, when
Quintall talked of taking "first watch."
"We set no watch," Avelyn protested. "That is the job for the common
crew." The monk certainly wanted no part of a night watch on the decks, for a
soaking rain had started, and even the smelly, damp cabin was better than
walking the slick decks, or even worse, climbing the masts.
"I am second," Thagraine said quickly, to Pellimar's dismay.
"Fear not," Quintall said to Pellimar, "for I am sure that Thagraine's
watch will not last long." That brought a laugh from both men, obviously at
Thagraine's expense.
Avelyn shoved his plate forward forcefully, angered now at being left out
of their little secret. It wasn't until Quintall had left, though, that he
finally got the clue he needed.
"She's a fine one," Pellimar remarked, quite offhandedly. Thagraine's face
as he glanced Avelyn's way showed that he was disappointed; that alone clued
Avelyn in to the fact that Pellimar had slipped.
"She?" Avelyn asked.
"The ship's whore," Thagraine admitted, scowling at Pellimar. "I am
thinking that your watch, Brother Pellimar, just became the fourth."
"Third," Pellimar insisted. "If Avelyn desires a ride this night, he can
wait until I've finished!"
Brother Avelyn sat back, thoroughly overwhelmed. The ship's whore? The
ceremony of necessity? His hands grew clammy -- more out of sheer fear than
anticipation. He had never expected such a thing, could not comprehend that his
companions, on the most important journey of their lives should they live a
century, would surrender to such base urges.
"Surely you are not offended," Thagraine scoffed at him. "Ah, but it is
simple embarrassment, then. Why, my dear Pellimar, I do believe that our
companion here has never ridden a woman."
 Ridden a woman? The coarse image burned in Avelyn's mind. To hear his
fellow monks speaking of something as sacred as love in such crude terms did
surprise and offend him.
He said nothing, though, fearful of making a fool of himself. Avelyn
understood that he could lose more than a little respect from the other three,
and that any mistakes could cost him dearly as the weeks aboard the Windrunner
dragged on.
"You go after Thagraine," he said to Pellimar, trying to keep his voice as
steady as possible. "I will wait for another time." He turned to lie on his cot
then, noting the judging look Thagraine was sending his way. There would be a
measure in this of his manhood, Avelyn realized, a test he could not fail. To
completely lose the respect of Thagraine, or any of the others, could jeopardize
it all. There were replacements for Pimaninicuit, after all, and Quintall, so
strong and virile, Quintall, no doubt practiced in the arts of lovemaking,
Quintall, who would likely visit this woman daily at the very least, was next in
line for the island.
But the thought of actually going to see the woman terrified Avelyn.
Thagraine's perception of his sexual past was indeed accurate. All his adult
life had been devoted to his studies; there had been no time for such
diversions. He tried to push it all from his mind and find solace in sleep, but
he got another shock when Thagraine and Pellimar began speaking in quite
familiar terms of a certain maidservant and two of the cook's helpers back at
the abbey.
"More practiced than any of them," Thagraine assured Pellimar, speaking of
the ship's woman.
"Yes, but the young one," Pellimar argued, his voice almost wistful. "Bien
deLouisa was her name, was it not?"
Avelyn's stomach churned; he knew the woman, hardly more than a girl. She
worked in the kitchen at St.-Mere-Abelle, a beautiful young lady with long black
hair and dark, mysterious eyes.
And now these two fellow brothers were comparing her lovemaking
techniques!
Avelyn found he could hardly breathe. Had he been so blind as that? He had
never even suspected that anything so sordid could go on at St.-Mere-Abelle.
He didn't sleep well at all that night.
* * *
The weather was rough over the next few days -- mercifully so, in Avelyn's
estimation, because he and his companions were kept very busy, attending
rigging, a dangerous yet thrilling exercise in the gusting winds, and crawling
in the dark belowdecks, checking for leaks in the hull. At one point, they even
took up buckets as part of a balling line.
The grueling schedule, though, allowed Avelyn the opportunity to put off
his more personal problems. He knew what would be expected of him -- the other
three viewed sexuality as a test of manhood -- and, on one level, at least, he
was indeed intrigued. More than that, however, Avelyn was simply terrified. He
had never known a woman in that way, and didn't know how he would react. Every
time he passed that cabin door, a small stateroom just behind the quarters of
Captain Adjonas, he trembled.
His sleep every night was fitful, tossing and turning even more than did
the Windrunner on the rough swells. All his dreams melded into that singular,
mounting fear. He began to envision monsters behind that door, a horrid
caricature of a woman, of his mother even, leering at him as he entered, eager
to destroy his finer feelings, to steal his very soul. But even those nightmares
were not quite that simple, for Avelyn's other instincts, more base than any he
had ever allowed himself to feel, often made him attack that female demon as
fiercely as she attacked him, wrestling and kicking, biting in furious,
uncontrollable passion. He awoke always in a cold sweat, and one time found
himself in an even more uncomfortable position.
It had to happen: the weather cleared. The Windrunner glided easily over
calmer seas, the southern reaches of the Mantis Arm's coast a gray blur to the
west. The four monks were on deck when Bunkus Smealy informed them that they
would have no formal duties that day, that they might go about their business.
"I know ye've a bit of prayin' to catch up on," the old sea dog said, mostly to
Quintall, with a lewd wink. "Say a prayer for me, if ye'd be so kind."
"One for every man on the ship," Thagraine piped in, bringing on a
cackling fit of laughter in Smealy. The old man ambled away on bowed legs.
"I could indeed use a round of morning exercise," Thagraine added
jubilantly when they were alone once more. He rubbed his hands together and
started aft.
Quintall caught him by the shoulder. "Avelyn," the stocky man said. Thagraine
turned to regard him. "We have all tasted the sweetness of Miss Pippin,"
Quintall explained, "except for our brother Avelyn."
Three sets of eyes bore down on the young monk, who felt small indeed.
"Go," the nervous young monk bade Thagraine, before he hardly considered his
options. "I am weary from the days of storm."
"Hold!" Quintall said forcefully, stopping Thagraine before he had taken a
single step. To Avelyn, he asked, "Are you to join with the barrelbumpers,
then?"
Avelyn's eyebrows rose with curiosity. He had heard the term before, and
he knew Quintall and the others used it for the common seamen, but he had no
idea what it meant. Now, putting it so obviously in sexual terms only confused
poor Avelyn even more.
"Yes," Quintall remarked quietly, "that might be more to your liking."
Thagraine and Pellimar chuckled; Avelyn noted that they tried to stifle the
laughs and were thus somewhat sympathetic to him, at least.
"I know not of what you speak, Brother Quintall," he replied bluntly,
firming his jaw. "Perhaps you would tell me what a `barrelbumper' might be."
That brought a loud snort from Pellimar. Thagraine nudged him hard.
Avelyn scrunched his face with distaste and disbelief. To see other
members of his order acting so . . . juvenile was the only word he could think
of to describe it, pained him greatly.
"Do you see that barrel," Quintall happily explained, pointing across the
open deck to a single keg set far forward.
Avelyn nodded gravely, not liking where this was going.
"It has a small hole. in one side," Quintall went on, "for those who
cannot use the woman."
Avelyn took a deep breath, trying to calm his mounting anger.
"Of course, you'll have to pay on your appointed night," Quintall
finished.
"The night you are in the barrel!" Thagraine howled, and all three broke
into laughter.
Avelyn saw nothing at all humorous in the ridiculous joke, nor did the few
crewmen close enough at hand to hear the insults. For Avelyn, this was a most
sacred mission, the most important duty of the Abellican Church, and to profane
it so by indulging in a shipboard orgy, was surely blasphemous.
"The woman was sanctioned by Father Abbot Markwart," Quintall said
suddenly, sternly, as if he had read Avelyn's thoughts -- not so difficult a
feat, given the man's sour expression. "In his wisdom, he knows the trying times
of a shipboard voyage and would have us reach Pimaninicuit healthy of mind and
body."
"And what of soul?" Avelyn asked, but Quintall snorted at the notion.
"The choice is yours," Quintall finished.
 Avelyn didn't think so, not at all. He had been called onto the table, so
to speak. His actions now carried serious consequences concerning his future
dealings with his three companions. If he didn't have their respect, he couldn't
expect their loyalty, and given the level of jealousy that had been creeping
about the four since they had become the chosen Preparers . . .
Avelyn took a bold step, cutting between Quintall and Thagraine. The
stocky man willingly fell back, a smirk on his dark face -- darker now for the
week of beard -- but Thagraine put his arm out to hold Avelyn back.
"After me," the monk said firmly.
Too angry for debate, Avelyn hooked his arm under, then up and over
Thagraine's and gave a sharp tug to put the monk off balance. Avelyn then let go
and dropped into a leg sweep that left Thagraine lying flat on the deck. Not
wanting to continue the struggle, Avelyn was up and walking fast before the
felled monk could respond.
Quintall's laughter followed him.
Captain Adjonas came out of his room as Avelyn neared. He looked at the
flustered young monk, then across the deck at the other three. His grin was
telling when he looked back at Avelyn, and he merely tipped his great feathered
hat and continued on his way.
Avelyn didn't look back. He stalked up to the stateroom and lifted his
hand to knock, then thought that perfectly ridiculous and simply walked in.
He caught her by surprise, wearing only a dirty nightshirt. She jumped
when he briskly entered, pulling the covers from her bed up before her.
She wasn't what he expected -- and was certainly not the monster of his
dreams. She was younger than he, probably just a year or so past twenty, with
long black hair and blue eyes that had long ago lost their sparkle. Her face
seemed tiny, framed by the voluminous hair, but cute, if not beautiful, and her
frame, too, was small and thin. Avelyn suspected that to be from lack of food
not from any desire to be fashionable.
She looked at Avelyn curiously, her fear fast-fading. "One o' the monks,
then?" she asked in a throaty voice. "He said there'd be four, but I thought I'd
seen all. . ." She paused and shook her head, apparently confused.
Avelyn swallowed hard; she was so oblivious of her partners that she
didn't even know how many of them had visited her.
"Are ye?"
"What?"
"A monk?"
Avelyn nodded.
"Well, good enough then," she said, and she tossed the blanket onto the
bed, then reached for the hem of her short shirt, pulling it up.
"No!" Avelyn said, near panic. He noted bruises on her legs, his eyes
drawn down despite his good intentions. And the dirtiness of the woman assaulted
him. Not that he was any cleaner; it amazed Avelyn how difficult it was to stay
washed in the middle of so much water.
"Not yet," Avelyn quickly clarified, seeing the woman's stunned
expression. "I mean . . . what is your name?"
"Me name?" she replied, and then she thought about it and chuckled and
shrugged. "Yer friend calls me Miss Pippin."
"Your real name," Avelyn insisted.
The woman looked at him long and hard, obviously confused and surprised
but also seeming a bit intrigued. "All right then," she said at length. "Call me
Dansally. Dansally Comerwick."
"I am Avelyn Desbris," the monk responded.
"Well, are ye ready then, Avelyn Desbris?" Dansally asked, pulling up the
hem a bit more and striking a teasing pose.
Avelyn considered the sight from two widely disparate viewpoints. Part of
him wanted to take her up on the offer, to rush right over and crush her under
him; but another part, the part that had spent more than half of Avelyn's life
in fervent effort to elevate him and all of mankind somehow above this level --
above following base, animalistic urges without thought, without reason -- could
not accept it.
"No," he said again, walking near her and gently moving her hand away so
that the nightshirt slipped back down over her legs.
"What would ye have me do?" the confused woman asked.
"Talk," Avelyn answered calmly, under control.
"Talk? And what would ye have me say?" she asked, a mischievous, lewd
sparkle coming to her blue eyes.
"Tell me where you are from," Avelyn bade her. "Tell me of your life
before this."
If he had slapped her, she would not have looked more wounded. "How dare
ye?" she asked.
Avelyn couldn't hide a smile. She seemed insulted, as if he had gotten too
personal with her, and yet she was offering willingly what should have been the
most personal thing of all! He held up his hands and backed off a step.
"Please sit, Dansally Comerwick," he bade, motioning at the bed. "I mean
you no harm."
"I am here for a reason," she said dryly, but she did sit on the edge of
the bed.
"To give us comfort," Avelyn said, nodding. "And my comfort will come in
the form of conversation. I would like to know you."
"To save me, then?" Dansally asked sarcastically. "To tell me where I
wandered from the righteous path and guide me back to it?"
"I would never presume to judge you," Avelyn said sincerely. "But indeed I
would like to understand this, which I apparently cannot comprehend."
"Have ye never felt a bit funny then?" she asked, again with that teasing
sparkle. "A bit itchy?"
"I am a man," Avelyn assured her in all confidence. "But I am not certain
that my definition of the term and that of my companions is nearly the same."
Dansally, not a stupid woman, settled back and digested the words. She had
spent the four days of the storm alone -- except for the regular visits of
Quintall, who never seemed to get enough of her. In truth, though, Dansally had
felt alone for so very long -- for all the voyage to and from St.-Mere-Abelle
and for years before that.
It took more than a bit of coaxing, but at last Avelyn got the woman to
answer his questions, to speak with him as she might a friend. He spent the
better part of two hours with her, sitting and
talking.
"I should go back to my duties now," Avelyn said at last. He patted her
hand and rose, heading for the door.
"Are ye sure yell not stay just a bit longer?" Dansally asked. Avelyn
looked back to see her stretched languidly on the bed, blue eyes sparkling.
"No," he answered quietly, with respect. He paused a moment, considering
the wider picture. "But I would ask a favor."
"Don't ye worry," Dansally replied with a wink before he could begin to
ask. "Yer friends'll look on ye with respect, don't ye doubt!"
Avelyn returned her smile warmly. He found that he believed her, and he
walked back out into the sunlight truly relieved, but not in the way that the
others, particularly Quintall, could ever have guessed.
Avelyn visited Dansally at least as often as all the others, sitting and
talking, laughing, and one night even with Dansally crying on his shoulder. She
had lost a baby, so she told him, stillborn, and her outraged husband had thrown
her out into the street.
As soon as the story came pouring out, Dansally pulled away from Avelyn
and sat staring hard at the man. She couldn't believe she had so opened up to
him. It made her more than a bit uncomfortable, for Avelyn, with his clothes on,
had reached her in ways that the others never could, had touched a very private
part of her indeed.
"He was a dog," Avelyn said, "and no better. And a fool, Dansally
Comerwick, for no man could ask for a better companion."
"There goes Brother Avelyn Desbris," Dansally said with a huge sigh.
"Savin' me again."
"I would guess that you need less saving than most," Avelyn replied. His
words, the sincerity of his tone, struck her dumb. She dropped her gaze to the
floor and the tears came again.
Avelyn went to her and hugged her.

The Windrunner made great time, cutting southwest from the southern
reaches of the Mantis Arm in a direct run to Freeport. Adjonas swung her out
wide at first, explaining that it would not do to be too close to treacherous
Falidean Bay, where the water could rise forty feet in twenty minutes and the
undertow of the tremendous flood tide could pull a sailing ship against gale
winds and smash it to bits on the rocks.
They put into Freeport only briefly, with but a handful of sailors going
ashore in the boat. The Windrunner caught the next tide away from the unlawful
and dangerous place, and they were soon into Entel harbor.
Entel was the third largest city in Corona, behind Ursal, the throne seat,
and Palmaris. The wharves were long enough in water deep enough for the
Windrunner to dock, and Adjonas gave leave for all hands to go ashore, in two
shifts.
On Quintall's orders, the four monks ventured out together to seethe city.
Pellimar suggested that they pay a visit to the local abbey. Thagraine and
Avelyn nodded, but pragmatic Quintall overruled that choice, fearing that any
discussion of what might have brought four brothers of St.-Mere-Abelle so far
south could lead to some uncomfortable questions. The secrets of Pimaninicuit
were the domain of St.-Mere-Abelle only; according to Master Siherton, even the
other abbeys of the Abellican Church knew little concerning the source of the
magic stones.
Avelyn remembered the speech Master Jojonah had given him when first they
had talked about the island, the stern warning that to utter even its name to
any without sanction of Father Abbot Markwart was punishable by death, and he
agreed with Quintall's logic.
So they spent the day walking and marveling at the sights of the great
city, at the thick rows of exotic flowers in the tree-lined green that centered
the place, at the shining white buildings, at the frantic bazaar, the largest
open market that any of them had seen, reputably the largest open market in all
Honce-the-Bear. Even the vivid, bright colors of the clothing of Entel's
inhabitants struck the four as unusual. The city, it was said, wad more akin to
those of exotic Behren than to any in Honce-the-Bear, and Avelyn, after half a
day of one astounding sight after another, decided that he would indeed enjoy a
visit to Behren.
"Another time, perhaps," he whispered, looking over his shoulder as he
made his way back aboard the Windrunner, the sun dipping over the city.
Resupplied, the Windrunner put out the next day, sails full of wind with a
favorable tide, sailing fast to the south.
Avelyn got his wish sooner than expected, for, without explanation,
Captain Adjonas put his ship into the next, harbor in line, Jacintha, just a
score of miles to the south, but across the mountain range that divided the
kingdoms.
The three, nervous monks looked to Quintall for answers, but he had none,
caught as completely off his guard as the others. He went at once to the
captain, demanding an explanation.
 "None know the southern waters better than the sailors of Behren," Adjonas
explained. "What winds we should catch, what troubles we might face. I have
friends here, valuable friends."
"Take care that your questions do not lead your contacts to the way to
Pimaninicuit," Quintall whispered ominously.
Adjonas straightened, the blood rushing to his face, making that garish
scar seem all the more imposing. But Quintall did not back down an inch. "I will
accompany you to your . . . friends."
"Then change out of your telling robes, Brother Quintall," Adjonas
replied. "I'll not guarantee your safety."
"Nor I yours."
The pair, along with Bunkus Smealy, went out late that afternoon, leaving
the nervous gazes of three monks and thirty crewmen at the rail. Pellimar
relieved his tensions with a visit to the woman -- to Avelyn's satisfaction, his
companions still didn't know her real name -- but Avelyn and Thagraine remained
at the rail, watching the sunset and then the lights of the structures that
lined the harbor.
Finally came the welcome sound of oars and the boat, all three safely
aboard. "We are out in the morning, at first light," Adjonas said sharply to
Smealy and to the nearby crew when the three gained the deck.
Thagraine and Avelyn exchanged grave looks, given the man's
uncharacteristic tone and the severe look on Quintall's face.
"The waters are not clear, by any reports," Quintall explained to his
brothers.
"Pirates?" asked Thagraine.
"Yes, that and powries."
Avelyn sighed and moved back to gaze at the unfamiliar landscape,
layers of lights lifting up to the darkness of the great range known as the
Belt-and-Buckle. He felt so far from home, and now, with the vast open Mirianic
looming before him and the talk of fierce powries, he began to understand that
he had much further yet to go.
He, too, visited Dansally that night. Brother Avelyn needed a friend.

CHAPTER 16
Endwar

Elbryan's fifth summer in Andur'Blough Inninness was among the very best times
in all his young life. He was no more a boy but a young and strong man, with all
traces of his youth gone except for a mischievous streak Tuntun feared he would
never be rid of. He continued his ritual with the milk-stones, running out
eagerly each morning, attacking the task with pride, for he could see the
difference the continual exercise had made on his tall, graceful form. His legs
were long and covered with muscle, and his arms had grown huge, each muscle
clearly defined. When Elbryan bent his fist forward and flexed, he couldn't put
his other hand -- and his hands were not small by human standards! -- halfway
around the bulging forearm.
But even with all that mass, there was nothing awkward about the young
man. He danced with the elves, he fought with the elves, he skipped along the
winding trails of Andur'Blough Inninness: His light brown hair had grown long,
to his shoulders, but he kept it clean and neatly trimmed, pushed back from his
face, which he still kept clean shaven.
He was welcomed in every elven ritual now -- in every dance, in every
celebration, in every hunt -- but still, perhaps more than ever, Elbryan felt
alone. It wasn't that he craved human companionship; he continued to fear that
thought greatly. It was simply Elbryan's realization of how different he was
from these creatures, and not just in stature. They had taught him to view the
world as an elf might, with utter freedom and often more veiled in imagination
than reality. Elbryan found that he could not possibly maintain such a stance.
His sense of order was simply too strong, his sense of right and wrong too
keenly developed. He expressed that sentiment to Juraviel one quiet afternoon,
he and the elf out on a long walk, talking of the plants and animals.
Juraviel stopped in his tracks and stared at the young man. "Could you
expect differently?" he asked simply.
It wasn't the wording but the way Juraviel spoke that offered Elbryan
comfort. For the first time, he realized that perhaps the elves were not
expecting him to be as one of them.
"We are showing you a different way to view the world about you," Juraviel
explained, "one that will aid you in your journeys and trials. We are giving you
tools that will put you above your kin."
"Why?" Elbryan asked simply. "Why was I chosen for these gig?"
"Blood of Mather," Juraviel replied, a phrase the young man had heard all
too often, usually derisively, from Tuntun. "Mather was your uncle, your
father's oldest brother."
As he spoke, Elbryan found his mind drifting back to a specific place and
moment, a time nearly five years previous, when he had stood on the ridge
outside of Dundalis, Pony beside him, looking up at the glowing Halo. Though his
mind conjured that image, that feeling, and placed him squarely within that
space and time, he remained alert to Juraviel's every word.
"He died very young, so it was believed by your father and the others of
the Wyndon family."
"I remember --" Elbryan stopped short. He didn't know what he remembered.
He had a feeling that his father had mentioned a lost older brother, Mather
perhaps, and it must have been so, because Elbryan now knew he had heard that
name before he had ever met with the Touel'alfar.
"The boy Mather was nearly killed," Juraviel went on. "We found him in the
woods, mauled by a bear, and brought him to Caer'alfar. It took him some time to
heal, but he was strong, as is the way of your heritage. Afterward, we could
have let him return to his family, but many months had passed and the Wyndons,
by all the reports of our scouts, had moved along."
The elf paused, as if wondering how he should proceed. "In centuries
past," he began solemnly, "our peoples were not so secluded. Elves and humans
lived near each other, often trading stories and goods and sometimes living
together in a single community. There were even marriages, two that I know
written of, between elf and human, though few offspring ever came from such
unions."
"What drove our peoples apart?" Elbryan asked, for he thought that the
world, particularly concerning his race, was a more tragic place for the change.
Juraviel chuckled. "You have been in Andur'Blough Inninness for five
years," he replied. "Have you noticed the absence, of anything?"
Elbryan crinkled his brow. What could possibly be missing from so
enchanted a place as this?
"Children," Juraviel prompted at length. "Children," he repeated, his
voice low. "We are not like humans. I might live a millennium -- I am nearly
halfway to that point already -- and sire no more than one, or perhaps two,
children."
Juraviel paused again, and it seemed to Elbryan as if a cloud passed over
the elf's angular features. "Three centuries ago, the dactyl awakened," he said
"Dactyl?" Elbryan asked.
"Demon," Juraviel clarified. He turned away from Elbryan, walked to the
edge of a small clearing, and lifted his head to the heavens and his voice in
song.

"When the eyes of sentries turn inward,

When the hearts of men covet,
When love is lost to lust.
When the ways of merchants turn cheating,
When the legs of women bow,
When gain is ill not just.
Then look ye men to darkness.
Then see the smoke-filled sky.
Then feel the rumble 'neath your feet
And know 'tis time to die.
So turn your swords away from kin
Your hatred far from kind,
And see the charge of goblin and dwarf
To which lust has left you blind.
Thus find your hearts and enemies true
And all ill ways forsake
And know the time for righteousness!
The dactyl has come awake!"

Many images flitted through Elbryan's imagination as Juraviel sang: scenes

of war and terror, scenes so very much like Dundalis on that awful day when the
goblins came. By the time Juraviel finished, the young man's cheeks were wet
with tears, and Juraviel's were as well, Elbryan noted when the elf turned back
to him.
"Dactyl is the name we give to it," Juraviel said softly, "though
truthfully the awakening of the demon is more an event of the whole world than
of a specific being. It is our own folly -- that of human and in times long
past, of elf -- that allows the dark creature to walk the earth."
"And when the demon awakens, then there is war," Elbryan reasoned from the
song. "Like the battle that claimed my family."
Juraviel shrugged and shook his head. "Often there are such battles when
humans and goblins live near. each other," he explained. "On the wide seas,
sailing ships often meet the low boats of powries, with predictable results."
Elbryan nodded; he had heard of the fierce powries and their reputation
for destroying human ships.
"It was three centuries ago when the dactyl last awakened," Juraviel said.
"At that time, I and my people traded openly with humans. We were many more.
Many more, though not as many as the humans. Co'awille, `Endwar,' we call that
horrible time, for four of every five elves were killed." He sighed resignedly.
"And since we do not procreate prolifically . . . "
"You had to run away," Elbryan reasoned. "For the very survival of your
race, you had to seclude yourself from the other races."
Juraviel nodded and seemed pleased by the perceptive reasoning. "And so we
came to Andur'Blough Inninness," he said, "and to other such places of mystery.
Aided by the holy humans and their precious gifts, the magical stones, we made
these places our own, secluded and veiled from the eyes of the wider world. Know
that the dactyl was defeated in that time long past after great cost, but gone,
too, was our time in this world. And so we live on, here and there, under
blankets of cloud, under cover of darkness. Our numbers are small; we cannot
afford to be known, even to the humans whom we consider our friends."
"Some of you do," Elbryan remarked, thinking of Tuntun.
"Even Tuntun," Juraviel replied with a laugh. But his smile did not last.
"She is jealous of what you have."
"I?".
"Freedom," Juraviel went on. "The world is open to you, but not to Tuntun.
She does not hate you."
"I will believe that right up until the next time we spar," Elbryan
replied, drawing a laugh from his elven friend.
 "She fights hard," Juraviel admitted. "And on you, she is particularly
strict. Is that not proof that she is your friend?"
Elbryan stuck a blade of grass between his teeth and considered the
viewpoint.
"Tuntun knows that your life may be difficult," Juraviel finished. "She
desires you to be properly prepared."
"For what?"
"Ah, that is the question," Juraviel answered, his finger pointing into
the air, his eyebrows arched. "Though we have forsaken the ways and places of
the humans, we have not forsaken your race. It is we, the elves of Caer'alfar,
who train those known as rangers, the protectors, usually of people who have no
idea they need protecting."
Elbryan shook his head; he had never heard of rangers, except for
occasional references by the elves.
'Mather was a ranger," said Juraviel, "one of the finest. For near to
forty years he kept a line a hundred miles long secure from goblins and fomorian
giants alike. His list of victories is far too long to be recited here, if we
had a week to spare."
Elbryan felt a strange sense of family pride. He remembered again that
morning on the ridge, viewing the Halo, hearing the name of Mather distinctly
within his mind.
"And so you shall be," Juraviel finished. "Elbryan the Ranger."
The elf nodded, then walked away. Elbryan understood that his lesson was
at its end and understood, too, that this lesson might have been the most
important of all during his time in Andur'Blough Inninness.
"There, do you feel it?"

Belli'mar Juraviel held his hand up, begging silence, then shifted his
sensitive bare feet about on the stone face. A moment later, feeling the subtle
vibrations running clearly into him through his toes, he gave a grim nod.
"Many miles north and west," Tallareyish remarked, looking that way as if
he expected some vast horde of darkness to be charging down toward Andur'Blough
Inninness.
"Lady Dasslerond has been told?" Juraviel asked.
"Of course," an elf by the name of Viellain, one of the oldest in
Caer'alfar, answered. "And scouts have gone out. There are reports of a trench,
a great upheaval, not twenty miles beyond our valley."
Juraviel looked to the north, to the wild lands beyond his elven home and
far beyond the settlements of any humans. "Do you know this place?" he asked of
Viellain.
"It should not be so hard to find," Tallareyish answered quickly, as eager
as Juraviel to glimpse the evidence. The pair looked at Viellain, their
expressions revealing much.
"The scouts will pass by the trench, if there is indeed such a marker,
then continue far to the north," the old elf explained. "Thus they shall not
return to Caer'alfar for many days."
"But Lady Dasslerond should be informed," Tallareyish reasoned, guessing
that Viellain, usually a stickler for rules, was coming around to their way of
thinking.
"We can reach this place and return before the sun has set tomorrow,"
Juraviel said, "if we can find it."
"The birds will know," Viellain assured him. "Always, the birds know."

The glade was strangely quiet this night, with no elves in the area -- or
at least none showing themselves, for Elbryan had been around the Touel'alfar
long enough to realize that a host of sprites could be within a dozen paces and
even he, now so attuned to the forest, would not suspect it unless they chose to
make their presence known.
Still, he was fairly certain that he was alone this night, except for his
opponent, standing in the shadows across the way.
The young man held his breath when the elf came out into the moonlight.
Tuntun.
Elbryan clutched his staff and set his heels. He had not battled Tuntun in
many weeks; he was determined now to give the upstart elf a bit of a surprise.
"I shall not stop beating you until you cry out my name," Tuntun taunted,
moving to the center and twirling her longer pole, the size of an elven sword,
in a circle, while her second weapon, a stick fashioned as a dirk, worked in
tighter circles over her fingers. Around and around the weapons went, reminding
Elbryan of her uncanny dexterity. Tuntun could roll four coins at a time on each
of her hands; she could juggle a dozen daggers, or even flaming brands,
effortlessly.
But that quickness and precision would not be enough, Elbryan told
himself. Not this time.
He stalked in, his staff horizontal before him, right hand palm up, left
palm down. Normally, the combatants would speak the rules before a match, but
with these two there was little need for such ceremony: After all these years,
Tuntun and Elbryan understood each other perfectly; between these two, there
were no rules.
Elbryan went into a crouch, and Tuntun wasted no time in going on the
attack, sending her sword straight ahead. Elbryan let go of his staff with his
left hand, turned his right hand over, then back. The overhand parry deflected
the stabbing blade, but the second attempt, the undersweeping slap designed to
send the elf's sword flying up high, was far too slow to catch up to Tuntun's
retracting movement.
Elbryan caught the staff again with his left hand, holding steady, his
defenses set.
But then he surprised Tuntun. Fighting logic said that he, with the
heavier weapon and more lumbering moves, should have allowed Tuntun the initial
attacks, playing black on the chessboard. Any offensive mistake would leave
Elbryan dangerously vulnerable to the elf's darting blades,
But on the young man came anyway, pressing furiously. He started with an
overhand, underhand parry sweep again, but instead of catching the staff with
his left hand as it came swishing back to horizontal, he turned his right hand
over once more. Halfway through the next sweep, Elbryan's powerful forearm
flexed tight, catching the pole in mid-swing, and he brought its low end
snapping in against his side, catching it under his right. arm, then lowering
and thrusting its tip like a spear.
Tuntun, almost expecting the attack from this man who so hated her, was
not caught by surprise. She backed through the first swishes, then ducked under
the thrust, crossing sword and dagger in an X above her head to keep the pole
harmlessly high. She expected then to find an opening for a counter but had to
stay defensive as she realized the young man wasn't yet through with his
surprisingly adept routine.
Elbryan brought the pole right back in, before Tuntun's crossed blades
could shift it to either side. Then he sent it straight out a second time,
cutting short the thrust as the elf predictably ducked. He brought the leading
end of the pole up and back over his head, launching the pole into an immediate
spin, catching it again in his left hand after it went once around, then
stepping forward forcefully. Now firmly held in both hands, his staff made a
second twirl, then came arching diagonally toward the ground, toward Tuntun.
The elf squealed and threw her sword out to the side, blade vertical, its
tip nearly touching the ground. The staff smacked it with all the young man's
considerable weight and strength behind it, and Tuntun went flying backward;
skipping and hopping, even flapping her gossamer wings, to absorb the tremendous
shock.
Elbryan smiled grimly and came on, twirling and swinging, poking,
stabbing, thrusting -- anything to keep the elf moving backward and off her
balance.
His success was partly gained by surprise. Soon the cunning elf had a new
and more respectful measure of him, and her parries -- and the distance she kept
between herself and her opponent -- became more appropriate.
And so they fought, evenly matched, for a long while, poles sometimes
slapping together so rapidly that it occurred to Elbryan that, if they had some
kindling, they might light a fire from friction alone! Each scored minor hits,
each felt minor stings, but neither seemed to gain the advantage as the minutes
continued to slip by.
Inevitably the hits, particularly on Elbryan, became more substantial as
weariness caused some sloppy defensive posturing. Tuntun was tiring, too,
Elbryan knew, and if he could land but one solid blow, the fight might be at its
end.
Elbryan slashed across in front of him and felt his staff smacked once,
twice, perhaps a half dozen times before he even completed the pass. One solid
blow, indeed, he thought, but landing that hit would prove no easy task!
That point came clearer a split second later, as the last of Tuntun's
sword parries hit hard enough to force his staff out just wide enough for the
elf to dart straight ahead and sting the fingers of Elbryan's trailing hand with
her dirk.
He needed something new, something Tuntun had not seen from him and could
not expect. Something daring, even desperate, like the shadow dive Tallareyish
had used to defeat him.
Tuntun was growing more confident, he realized. She felt she had his
measure.
She was ripe for the plucking.
A series of swipes, stabs, and forward strides put Elbryan in the desired
position. He shifted back on his heels, reading the elf's next attack perfectly
and easily sliding too far away for the small sword to reach.
Then he came ahead in a rush, hands apart and holding firm, swiping the
staff across left to right in front of him, up high so that Tuntun could not
stop it and had to duck it.
She did, perfectly, but Elbryan kept his staff moving, letting go with his
left hand and using his right merely to keep the staff's turn intact and
balanced. He caught the weapon mid-pole, again in his left hand, an overhand
grasp as it came around his back and swiped it across in the same direction,
this time with only the one hand and using his hip, the back half of the staff
still behind it, for leverage.
Again Tuntun -- though surprised the second swing had come the same way
and not on the predictable backhand -- managed to dodge, this time rolling
around the tip of the pole, turning a complete spin back to her right.
But Elbryan wasn't more than half done. As his staff came sweeping around
to horizontal in front of him, he caught it in his right hand, quickly flipped
his left hand under the weapon, then stepped ahead and to the left in swift
pursuit and launched the third swipe, again left to right, by pulling his right
hand in while thrusting his left out.
Tuntun's only avenue of escape was straight down to the ground, and so she
took it unceremoniously.
Elbryan did not check the flying momentum, continuing his own spin and
letting the staff fly out to its full extension, catching it down low in both
hands, as he might have held a club in his younger days when at play smacking
rocks far into the air.
 Around he went, all the way around, though he knew that it was dangerous
to turn his back for even a split second on one as swift as Tuntun. He yelled
out as he came back to face her, dropping to one knee, swiping low with all his
strength.
The staff swished harmlessly through the air. Tuntun was gone!
The man's mind whirled through the possibilities, all jumbled with the
horror that he had erred, that he was about to get clobbered. He realized
immediately that Tuntun could not have stepped left or right without his
noticing and certainly couldn't have gone low under the cut with him dropping to
one knee.
That left only one possibility, an escape borne on translucent wings.
As his swing crossed before him, Elbryan turned his left shoulder down and
fell into a roll that left him on his back in the grass. He pulled with all his
great strength, tearing out the staff's momentum, halting its flow and turning
it perpendicular to the ground.
Down came Tuntun, her wing-fluttering hop exhausted, her sword pointed
below her, leading. She had meant to pounce right upon stupid Elbryan's back,
driving her wooden practice sword into the back of his neck. How her blue eyes
widened when she saw the pole's tip come up to meet her descent!
She batted futilely with her sword, then, that failing, tried to stab down
at Elbryan. Her breath came out in a rush as she plopped down hard, the staff's
butt end secure against the ground, its tip stabbing hard into her chest between
her lowest ribs.
She held there for a long moment, up high on the eight-foot pole, her
sword nowhere near supine Elbryan. She dropped the sword -- unintentionally,
Elbryan knew, for it fell harmlessly to the side -- so the young man graciously
pulled the pole out straight so Tuntun wouldn't fall off balance to either side.
She landed on her feet, skittered back away from the weapon, but soon fell,
gasping desperately for breath.
Elbryan, his weapon dropped, was at her side in a moment. He thought
himself foolish as he neared the unpredictable Tuntun, expecting that she would
find the strength to drive her dirk into his face, thus claiming a draw.
But Tuntun had no such strength. She couldn't even talk, and her dirk,
like her sword before it, slipped uselessly from her weakened hand. Elbryan
knelt beside her, his arm about her shoulders, comforting her.
"Tuntun," he repeated over and over, for he feared she was hurt, that she
might die out here in the practice glade with no one near her except this man
she so despised.
But finally she was breathing somewhat steadily again. She looked up at
Elbryan, sincere admiration in her eyes. "Fairly won," she congratulated. "I
thought . . . you had over . . . stepped . . . your ability, but your recovery .
. . was truly remarkable."
Tuntun nodded and rose unsteadily, then walked from the glade, leaving
Elbryan kneeling in the grass.
He hardly knew how to react. After so many long months, he had scored his
first win.

The row of trees, short and wide apples, ran almost perfectly straight,
then jumped back a dozen feet, up a ridge twice an elf's height, and continued
on straight again from there. The upheaval was recent, that much was perfectly
clear, for the soil on the torn side of the ridge was loose and deep brown,
pocked here and there by a root, but with no fresh, aboveground growth.
Something had reached into the middle of this line of apple trees and simply
pulled back a third of the row.
"This is one of Brother Allarbarnet's groves," remarked Tallareyish. The
other two nodded their agreement, for Allarbarnet, a wandering monk of St.
Precious Abbey of Palmaris, was not unknown to them or to any reasoning creature
of Corona. He had wandered the lands -- the Wilderlands and not the civilized
regions of his birth -- more than a century before, planting lines of apple
seeds in hope that his fruit would encourage the people of the kingdom of Honce-
the-Bear to explore the wider world. Brother Allarbarnet -- the canonization
process for the man had already begun, and the abbots expected that he would be
sainted within the decade -- had not lived to see his dream realized; indeed, it
had not yet been realized, but many of his groves had grown and flourished.
Unknown to the humans, Brother Allarbarnet had been named an elf-friend, and had
often been aided by the elves or by the rangers the elves had trained. So these
three knew of the man and his work, knew of his groves, and knew that they were
always planted in straight lines.
What, then, had so altered this one?
There could be only one answer, for no living creature, not even one of
the great dragons of the north, could so tear this amount of ground in such an
even, tidy manner.
"Earthquake," Juraviel muttered, but even given his grim demeanor, his
melodic voice could sound only a bit ominous.
"From that direction," Tallareyish agreed, pointing to the north in the
direction, they all knew, of the wastelands of old, a tom and battered
mountainous region known as the Barbacan.
"Not so unusual an event," Viellain reminded the pair. "Quakes happen in
all times."
Juraviel understood his fellow's reasoning and knew the elf was speaking
those words for his sake mostly. For Juraviel's anxiety was clearly etched on
his fine features -- how could it have been otherwise when he had been speaking
to his protégé Elbryan about this very subject not a week's time past?
Viellain was right, Juraviel knew logically. Earthquakes and
thunderstorms, swirling tornadoes, even exploding volcanoes, were more often
than not natural events. Perhaps it was coincidence.
Perhaps, but Juraviel knew, too, that such events might accompany a larger
and darker phenomenon, that earthquakes that could tear the earth as here, that
goblin raids upon villages, like the one that had orphaned Elbryan not five
years before, might signal something evil indeed.
He looked to the north again, peering hard just above the horizon. If the
day had been clearer, his keen eyes might have spotted something, some flicker,
some-confirmation. For now, the elf could only worry.
Had the dactyl awakened?

CHAPTER 17
Black Wings

They took. it slowly, very slowly, with eager Connor coming to understand
Jilly's needs and hesitation. He sensed the way she tensed every time he moved
near her, every time his face was within a few inches of hers, his lips and hers
seeming to pull together as if magnetic.
But Jill inevitably turned away, her face flushed with frustration as deep
as that which Connor felt. On those first few occasions, Connor took the
rejection personally, as a slight, despite Jill's proclamations otherwise. He
couldn't help but feel that she did not find him attractive, that he somehow
revolted her. No novice in the ways of love, the nephew of Palmaris' baron was
surprised and pained but also intrigued. Jilly was a challenge he had not before
faced and one he was determined to overcome.
Gradually, as he came to see the light in Jill's eyes every time he
entered the Way -- a more and more common occurrence -- the proud young man
began to understand and accept that her problem was within the mysteries of her
past and not with him. That realization didn't lessen the challenge, though, and
Connor found he wanted Jill more desperately than he had ever wanted any woman.
To Connor Bildeborough, Jill became perhaps the ultimate challenge of his young
life. So he would be patient, would spend his nights walking with Jill and
talking. His other needs could be taken care of in the many brothels that openly
offered their wares in the city, but of course he didn't need to tell Jill, his
Jilly, about that.
For Jill's part, her night always got better when Connor entered the Way.
She found herself thinking about him constantly, even dreaming about him. She
took him to her private place, the roof down the alley, and together they sat
for hours watching the stars, talking comfortably. It was up there that she
finally allowed Connor to kiss her -- actually kissing him back -- though she
kept it brief and pulled away as soon as those dark wings of some past event she
did not understand began to flap up around her. In kissing him -- in kissing
anyone, she supposed -- Jill was sent back to a moment of pain, an event in her
past too painful for her to remember.
But she suffered that pain, and let Connor kiss her, every once in a
while.
It was up on that rooftop, under a sky that was streaked by clouds and
stars, that Connor first mentioned the prospect of marriage.
Jill found it hard to breathe. She couldn't look at the man but kept her
eyes locked on the stars, as if seeking refuge high above. Did she love Connor?
Did she know what love was?
She knew it made her happy to be with Connor but also that it terrified
her. She couldn't deny the longings, how parts of her body seemed to grow very
warm, how she felt as if she were on did, verge of trembling whenever she looked
upon him. But neither could Jill deny die -- fear of getting too close -- to
Connor or to any man. The sweetness was there, but somehow just out of Jill's
reach.
Her first instinct told her to refuse the proposal. How good a wife might
she be, after all, when she wasn't even sure who she really was? And how long
would Connor remain with her when even a kiss was a strained thing, something
she had to force past this great black block that she did not understand?
But what of Pettibwa and Graevis? Jill had to consider. What of her duty
to the couple who had taken her in and given her a home? How much better their
lives would be to know that she was well wed! Perhaps her ascension into local
nobility would even raise their own station in life, and Jill would treasure
that above all else.
Jill finally found the nerve to look back at Connor, to stare into those
marvelous brown eyes, sparkling more now in this starry light than she had ever
seen.
"You know that I love you," he said to her, "only you. All these weeks,
nay months, I've sat beside you, wanting to make love to you, wanting to wake
beside you. Ah, my Jilly, do say you love me. If you do not, then I shall walk
into the Masur Delaval and let the cold waters take me, for never again will
this body know warmth."
The words sounded so beautiful to the young woman, except for his
reference to her as "Jilly," which she really didn't like much, which made her
feel like a little girl. She believed him with all her heart, and she had come
to love him, so she thought: What else could it be called, after all,
considering that her smile came so easily whenever he was in sight?
"Will you wed with me?" he asked softly, so softly that Jill really didn't
hear the words but felt them as if they were transferred to her by his gentle
touch as he ran the tip of his finger from the side of her nose and down her
cheek.
She nodded and he kissed her, and she let him hold her close, their lips
together for a long while, and all that time, while Connor was making soft,
satisfied noises, Jill was beating back black wings, was furiously fighting to
divorce her mind from the current situation, was remembering beer orders from
her work in the Way, was thinking of the man she had seen get run down by a
rushing cart the week before -- anything so that the moment would not send her
careening back across the lost years to something, some horrible event, that she
could not face.
The reaction of Pettibwa and Graevis to the news of the marriage was not
hard to predict. The bartender nodded, smiling, and gave his precious Cat -- he
still called her that -- a generous and warm hug. Pettibwa was distinctly more
animated, hopping up and down, breasts and belly bouncing wildly, and clapping
her hands together, her cheeks fast streaking with an outburst of tears. All
that Graevis and Pettibwa had ever wanted for the girl was for her to be happy:
as unselfish a love as anyone could ever know. And now that seemed so certain.
To wed nobility! Jill would never want for anything, so they believed. She would
dress in the finest gowns and attend the highest social events in Palmaris, even
in Ursal!
Their reaction confirmed to Jill that she had made the right choice.
Whatever her personal problems, the sight of Graevis and Pettibwa so animated
and so sincerely happy warmed her heart. With all that they had done for her,
how could she have ever chosen otherwise?
The wedding was planned by Connor's family, of course, since they had the
wealth to do it right for late summer, and with all of the preparations ahead of
them, Connor and Jill actually saw less of each other over the next few months
than before the proposal.
* * *
"Finished already?" Grady called as he descended the wide, sweeping
staircase of House Battlebrow, the most renowned brothel in all of Palmaris.
Connor, sitting back on one of the plush chairs in the lobby, turned an
absent gaze his companion's way.
"What, only one this night?" Grady chided. "To be sure then, there are at
least two disappointed ladies in the house!"
"Enough, Grady," Connor replied, his commanding tone leaving little doubt
as to which was the dominant one in this relationship. Grady's standing was
nowhere near Connor's, and the only reason the baron's nephew suffered the
almost constant companionship of the upstart commoner was for the sake of his
adopted sister.
Grady knew too much about Connor's nighttime pursuits for the nobleman to
discard him, and though Grady had never even hinted at blackmail, Connor
understood him well enough to fear him.
"What is wrong, my friend?" Grady asked, tying his belt and sliding into
the chair beside Connor. "Your cheer has been left behind, I fear. Might the
bonds of approaching matrimony be tightening?"
"Hardly," Connor replied. "Would that the day were the morrow! How long I
have waited!"
Grady spent a long moment digesting those words, trying to find any hidden
meanings.
"And do not doubt my, love for your sister," Connor went on. "She is
surely the most beautiful, the most tantalizing and teasing . . ." He let it go
with a profound sigh.
Grady put his hands in front of his mouth to hide his grin. "So it seems
that she is driving you mad," he offered. "Her charms have put you into the arms
of three women a night for, lo, these five months!"
Connor glared at him, hardly appreciating the sarcasm. "And if you tell
her a single word of it, I shall stick my sword into your belly and wriggle it
about," he warned, and there was little doubt he meant every grim word.
But Grady understood he had the upper hand and he would not back away.
"You do so like sticking and wriggling," he teased.
 "As any true man must!" Connor insisted. "Am I to let Jilly drive me to
madness? But that does not mean I love her any less. Understand that. So fine a
wife."
"Have you bedded her?"
Connor's expression forced Grady to lean the other way, fearing the man
would slap him. "An honest question," Grady protested, "and not one aimed in
protection of my sister's honor. Know that I would bed her myself, except for
the consequences I would face from my parents."
"And from me." Connor's words sounded as a low growl.
"No longer do I desire such a thing, of course," Grady wisely conceded.
Even hinting that he still had amorous desires for Jill to Connor would be akin
to reaching under a crowning eagle to pull away its meal. "She is for you, and
only you. A swooning girl, if ever I saw one. No man but Connor Bildeborough
could bed her now, but by force.
"And what of Connor Bildeborough?" Grady bravely pressed. "Has Jill
surrendered?"
"No," the frustrated nobleman admitted. "But the time is near."
"End of midsummer, I should say," Grady agreed, "or will you wait that
long?"
"I give her until the wedding night," Connor replied. "She is fearful --
virgins always are -- but of course, my rights on that night are absolute. She
will offer it, or I shall take it!"
Grady wisely bit back a remark questioning the virginity of his adopted
sister. It really didn't matter; all that mattered was what Connor believed.
And indeed Connor believed! Grady could see that in his every fidget, in
his almost animal-like intensity. Why, even the practiced whores of House
Battlebrow were losing their charms for him!
"Dear Jilly," Grady mumbled under his breath as Connor rose furiously from
the chair and stormed across to the exit. "You teasing little wench. Putting
your maidenhead on a barbed hook and jiggling it before the baron's nephew."
Grady silently applauded his conniving little sister, though his perception of
her actions almost scared him; he had never thought her capable of such a
beautifully treacherous play. "Ah, good enough for both of them, I say," Grady
remarked more loudly, addressing a pair of ladies sitting on the bottom step of
the wide stairway as he walked past in pursuit of Connor. The women cocked their
heads curiously. "I'll be rid of you, dear sister," he went on; speaking to
himself once more, "and let Connor Bildeborough learn in his own time that you
were not worth the waiting!"
Another prostitute entered from the street just before Grady went out. He
cupped her chin in his hand, drawing a smile from her. "The little teasing
wench," he said, moving near the woman, who was one of his favorites: "Poor
Connor will learn soon enough that she hasn't your charms nor your talents."
He kissed her, then rushed out behind Connor. The night was young but
getting on, and Connor would soon enough have to get to the Way to meet Jill.
But perhaps he'd have time for a few drinks and a dice game before.
It was a ceremony that had all of Palmaris talking; the women swooning,
the men standing tall, feigning importance, wishing they were in the carriage in
Connor Bildeborough's place as it made its winding way, through the streets. Any
reservations that the nobleman's family had held toward the peasant orphan girl
had been washed away when they met Jill, truly beautiful both inside and out.
Now, seeing her adorned in a white gown of satin and lace, her long, thick blond
mane pinned up on one side and hanging loose on the other, she seemed made for
royalty. There were even whispers that the young woman was indeed of royal
blood, end a host of rumors as to her past made their way through the crowds.
It was all nonsense, all pretension, but in Honce-the-Bear in God's Year
821, that was the way things were done.
 For Jill, her face was a mask of paint and false smiles. She looked a
princess but felt like a little lost girl. On the one hand," she couldn't deny
the pleasure of dressing so beautifully, of knowing she was the center of
attention. On the other hand, being the center of attention truly terrified her.
It was bad enough that the carriage would roll through every part of the large
city, bad enough that more than five hundred people would be in attendance at
the church when she and Connor were wed, but the thought of what would come
later, after the grand ball . . .
"I have waited long enough," Connor had said to her that morning,
following the words with a kiss on the cheek. "Tonight."
And then he had left Jill with the thought. She hadn't even been able to
kiss him yet without those black wings of that awful past flapping up around
her, but she knew what he expected -- one of his house servants had described it
to her in great detail.
She had smiled at Connor before he left, trying to be comforting. She
dreaded the night to come.
The ceremony went off perfectly solemn yet joyous, ladies crying, men
standing tall and handsome. After the carnage ride, the newlyweds came to a hall
filled with music and drink, with ladies and gentlemen spinning about, twirling
and laughing. It was loud and rushing, exhilarating. Jill rarely drank more than
a single glass of wine, but this night, Connor kept foisting glasses upon her,
and she kept taking them. He was trying to loosen up her inhibitions, and she
was, too.
Or maybe she was just trying to blur the terror.
She found herself in the arms of dozens of men whom she did not know,
gentlemen all, by blood if not by deed. More than one whispered something lewd
in her ear, more than one tried to get a hand somewhere it should not be. Even a
bit drunk, Jill was agile, and she got through the dancing with her purity
intact.
The ball ended far too soon, at Connor's insistence, which brought more
than a few randy comments.
Jill suffered them as she had suffered everything else, quietly and
privately, looking at Graevis and Pettibwa as they stood beside the
Bildeboroughs. This was for them, Jill constantly reminded herself, and in
truth, she had never seen them, particularly Pettibwa, looking so happy.
When the guests were excused, Connor took Jill across the town to the
mansion of his uncle, the Baron Bildeborough. They entered quietly through a
side door of the west wing, proceeding to the guest quarters, which were empty;
save a pair of handmaidens Baron Bildeborough had put at Connor's bidding. The
two young women -- younger than Jill even, though she had just passed eighteen -
- took Jill to the private chamber, a room that made her feel tiny indeed! The
ceiling was high, the walls covered in grand tapestries, and both the bed and
the hearth were of heroic proportions. For Jill, who had spent her life so
simply, it seemed somehow obscene; a dozen people could sleep comfortably on
that bed, and she needed a stepping stool to even get onto it!
She said nothing as the handmaidens helped her to get out of her great
gown, making suggestions all the while as to how she should proceed, of this
trick or that trick they had heard about. "A lady must be well practiced in the
ways of lovemaking for royalty," one of them remarked.
"Is there a girl in Palmaris that Connor Bildeborough could not bed?" the
other added.
Jill thought she would throw up.
When the tittering pair finally left, Jill was sitting on the edge of the
great cushiony bed, wearing only a simple silk nightgown that was too low cut,
both front and back, and didn't go nearly far enough down her legs. The night
was chill for late August and the room drafty, but the handmaidens had lit a
small fire in the hearth. Jill was just moving for it when the door swung open
and Connor, dressed in the black pants and white shirt he had worn for the
wedding and ball but without his boots, without his jacket, and without his
belt, entered.
She started for the hearth; he cut her off and wrapped his arms about her.
"My Jilly," he whispered, the word lost as his lips brushed against her
neck.
Connor backed off almost immediately, his face crinkled in confusion. He
could feel her tension, she knew, and that notion alone allowed her to relax a
bit. Connor knew her so very well; he could sense her fear. He would be gentle
With her, she believed, would give her all the time she needed. He loved her,
after all!
Even as that thought cascaded down through Jill's body, easing the
muscles, Connor grabbed her and pulled her to him roughly, crushing his lips
against hers. She hadn't even time to consider the rush of passion, so surprised
was she. She didn't fight back, not at first, just stood there perfectly still.
She tasted his lips, felt his tongue brushing through.
In her mind, she heard a scream, agonized. The scream of a dying child, of
her mother, of her village.
"No!" Jill growled, pushing him back.
She stood before him, panting.
"No?"
Jill could not find the breath to answer, to explain. She just stood
there, shaking her head.
"No?" Connor yelled again, and he slapped her across the face.
Jill felt her knees buckle and she would have gone down, except Connor was
on her again, squeezing her tight, kissing her all about the face and neck. "You
cannot deny me," he said.
Jill squirmed arid twisted, not wanting to hurt him, even sympathetic to
him, but simply unable to comply with his needs. Finally she worked her arm up
under his and broke the hold enough so that she could move back a step.
"I am your husband," Connor said evenly. "By law. I will do as I please
with you."
"I beg of you," Jill said, her voice barely a whisper.
Connor threw up his arms and spun away from her. "You have kept me waiting
all these months!" he roared. "I have dreamed about you, about this night.
Nothing else in all the world matters but this night!" He spun back to face her,
now several steps away.
Jill felt as if she must be the most horrible person in the world. She
wanted to give in to Connor, to give him what he deserved for his patience. But
those wings, those black wings, that distant scream!
Connor's demeanor changed again, suddenly. "No more," he declared, his
voice low, even threatening. Jill watched helplessly as he tore open his shirt,
leaving it back on his shoulders, then squirmed out of his pants.
She had never seen a nude man before, and certainly not like this! But
whatever feelings the sight of Connor's body -- and he was indeed a beautiful
main -- might have inspired were washed away by the fear, by the black wings, by
feelings that Jill could not understand.
Even worse, there was no love, no tenderness in his face as he stalked
back to her, just heated desire, an almost angry passion. "Look at me!" he
demanded, grabbing Jill by the shoulders and turning her roughly, forcing her to
face him directly. "I am your husband. I will do as I please, when I please!" As
if to accentuate his point, he reached over with one hand and tore down the side
of Jill's nightgown, pulling it low enough to reveal one of her breasts. The
sight of it, round and firm and creamy white, seemed to calm him for a moment.
"You approve of my appearance," he concluded.
 Jill looked down. Her nipple stood hard, but it was not for love, not for
excitement, just fear and a cold sensation that coursed through her entire body.
Connor brought his hand to it and pinched it hard.
Jill winced and pulled away. "I beg of you," she whispered again.
Her hesitance incited his rage once more. Connor grabbed her and pulled
her down, and before she could move to protest, he was on top of her, his knee
between her legs, forcing them apart.
"No!" she begged, and she could feel him prodding at her, tearing at her
nightgown to get the material out of his way.
His passion seemed to mount, driving him on, forcing him closer, rougher.
Jill gasped for air that would not come. She heard the flapping wings, the
screams, the dying. She pulled and turned, looking away as his hungry mouth
descended, but he only pursued, pinning one of her arms, putting all of his
weight atop her.
The screams, distant, agonized. Her mother dying!
Jill scraped her forearm on the sharp edge of the stone hearth. She looked
up to see she was trapped by the raised hearth, no room to squirm, her head
close to the stone. And Connor would not relent, prodding and pushing.
Her mind was lost to the swirl of the past to the screams, to the sights,
the smells of torn bodies swelling, growing thick with decay. She was there
again, in that most horrible place, with no escape, with the death and the fire.
The fire.
She saw the ember fall from a log, orange glowing like the eye of some
hideous night creature. She closed her. hand on it and felt no pain, was beyond
pain.
And then she turned and stuck it into the face of her attacker, into the
face of this thing that was atop her, this thing that had killed her mother, had
murdered all of her village. It howled and fell away, and Jill rolled out from
under it and scrambled to the bed.
Her surroundings confused her. She saw the man -- it was a man, it was
Connor! -- rise to his feet, clutch at his face, and run screaming out of the
room.
Waves of pain assaulted her suddenly; she threw the ember back into the
fireplace.
What had she done?
She fell upon the bed, crying, clutching her burned hand in the other and
pressing both of them under her, against her breasts. Her sobs did not relent
for many minutes, for half an hour perhaps, for all of an hour. She did not
stop, did not look up when she heard the door open, when she heard the sound of
footsteps -- more than one set -- approaching.
She did not stop crying when she was grabbed roughly and turned about, her
arms pinned out wide to the sides, her legs hooked under the knees and similarly
pulled out wide.
The handmaidens had her securely, and Connor, the burns on his face
mercifully not so bad, approached, wearing only his shirt, and with that garment
open wide.
"You are my wife," he said grimly.
Jill had no more fight left in her. She looked up pleadingly at the two
women that held her, but both seemed impassive, even somehow pleased by it all,
by the sight of her, and of Connor -- seemed pleased by her helplessness and
their part in it.
She looked back as Connor climbed up onto the bed, moving right atop her.
She shook her head. "I beg," she whispered.
Connor thrust against her, but she felt no stabbing point.
Connor lifted his head up from her, and he seemed to her truly hurt and
saddened. He spun away in frustration, shifting off the bed right back to his
feet.
 "I cannot," he admitted, looking back sharply, his eyes reflecting a
simmering rage. "Take her out of here and lock her in a room," he demanded of
the handmaidens, who immediately and none too gently moved to comply. "We shall
let the magistrate, Abbot Dobrinion, determine her fate in the morning. Take
her!
"And then return to me," Connor added, speaking to the handmaidens, but
aiming the words at Jill's heart. "Both of you."

CHAPTER 18
The Test of Faith

Hour after endless hour, day after endless day, the Windrunner glided lazily
across the sparkling glassy surface of the South Mirianic. The sun became the
enemy; the air grew uncomfortably hot. All the time.
Avelyn thought his very skin would slip off his body, a great rag, and
fall rumpled to the deck. He burned and blistered, then browned, darker and
darker, taking on the leathery appearance of those seasoned sailors around him.
He tried to keep clean shaven, as did his monk companions, but there was no
blade fine enough, and soon all three had scraggly beards.
The worst of it was the boredom. All they could see in any direction was
the flat bluish-gray line of the horizon. Moments of excitement -- a whale
spout, the flight of a dolphin beside the prow, a run of bluefish churning white
the water -- came all too rarely and lasted barely seconds, to be inevitably
replaced by the emptiness of the open sea. All romantic notions Avelyn had held
concerning sea voyages were long gone, washed away by the slow, creaking,
rolling reality.
He visited Dansally often, and for hours at a time. She was forbidden to
come out of her cabin and preferred it that way, both she and the captain
fearing what might happen if the common sailors, men who had been away from
women for great lengths of time, caught her sweet scent. Thus she kept her cabin
door securely locked.
Avelyn also noted that his three monk companions, apparently tiring of
Dansally, visited her far less often. He was glad of that, though he wasn't
certain why. Dansally didn't seem to mind at all the duties of her profession,
and Avelyn had come to accept her work as a part of who she was. As he had said
to her on his initial visit, it was not his place to judge her.
He believed that with all his heart, and yet he couldn't deny he was glad
to see that the others, including Captain Adjonas, were spending less time with
her. He came to know aspects of Dansally that his companions would never think
to look former witty sense of humor, tenderness, and her regrettable resignation
for her station in life. Avelyn came to hear her dreams and ambitions, uttered
rarely and never to anyone else, and he, alone among all the men the woman had
known, tried to encourage those dreams, to give the woman some respect for
herself. The issue of physical intimacy did not come up between them during
those weeks, for both of them had found a more special intimacy, far more
satisfying.
And so the days went, the sun, the stars, the endless swells and sparkles.
The one relief for the monks and crewmen alike came on cloudless nights, for the
colors of the Halo were much clearer here than in the northern zones. Soft blues
and purples, vivid oranges and sometimes a deep crimson lined the night sky,
lifting hearts and spirits.
Even prosaic and gruff Quintall appreciated the beauty, saw the Halo as a
sign of God, and took faith whenever those colors appeared.
"Starboard ho!" came the cry one bright morning the second week out of
Jacintha.
 Quintall peered at the horizon, hopeful, though he knew from his
discussions with Adjonas that they were not near to halfway to Pimaninicuit, and
any other land they might sight would only tell them that they were far off
course.
"Whale to starboard!" the lookout cried a moment later. "Must be a dead
one, 'cause he's not moving."
Farther back along the deck, Avelyn was close enough to hear Captain
Adjonas mutter, "Damnation."
"Is it bad fortune to spot a dead whale?" the innocent monk asked.
"No whale," Adjonas answered grimly. "No whale." He headed forward, Avelyn
in his wake, and Bunkus Smealy, Pellimar, and Thagraine falling in line.
Quintall was already at the rail, pointing far out and down.
Adjonas took up his spyglass and peered in the direction. He shook his
head almost immediately and handed the instrument to Quintall -- a move that
Bunkus Smealy apparently did not like.
"No whale," Adjonas said again. "Powrie."
"Powrie?" Avelyn said, confused. Powries were skinny dwarfs, barely four feet in
height.
"Powrie vessel," Adjonas explained. "Barrelboats, they're called."
"That is a boat out there?" Pellimar asked in amazement.
Quintall nodded, bringing down the glass. "And keeping fair time with us,"
he added.
"They've no sail," argued Pellimar, as if logic alone should dismiss the
possibility that this was a powrie craft.
"Powries need no sail," Adjonas answered. "They pedal, turning a shaft to
a great fan aft of the ship."
"Pedal?" Pellimar scoffed, thinking the notion ridiculous in so vast a
sea, where distance was measured in hundreds of miles.
Adjonas' voice was grim and unrelenting. "Powries do not tire.
Avelyn had heard as much. Powries were not often seen, except in times of
war when they were dealt with all too often. Their battle prowess was the stuff
of legend, of terrifying fireside tales. Though diminutive in stature, they were
said to be stronger than an average man and with incredible stamina. They could
suffer brutal hits with club or sword and keep on fighting, and they could wage
battle for hours at a stretch, even after a forced march of many miles.
"So far out," Quintall remarked. "Surely there's no land within ten days
sail."
"Who can know the minds of powries," Adjonas replied. "They have been
quite active of late, so my friends in Jacintha informed me. They slip into the
shipping routes and take their fill, then move back to deep water, following the
blues or the cod or other favored fish. A hardy and stoic type, do not doubt;
powries have been said to be out on the open water for a year and a half at a
stretch."
"But what would they do with their booty?" Avelyn reasoned innocently,
drawing looks from the other five. "If they waylay ships, what goods do they
extract and where, then, do they drop off their newfound cargo?"
Adjonas and Bunkus Smealy exchanged grim glances, telling the four monks
that they simply did not understand this enemy.
"They take lives," Adjonas answered calmly. "They waylay ships simply to
kill. They attack only to pillage enough stores to get them to the next ship and
for the simple thrill of the hunt and torture."
Avelyn blanched, so did Thagraine and Pellimar, but Quintall only let out
a low growl and tarried his gaze back in the direction of the distant powrie
ship.
"But for us to pass so close to one of them," Pellimar offered nervously.
"What dumb luck is that? We'd not even have seen the craft if we were but a
hundred more yards to port."
 "But they would have seen us," Adjonas replied. "Our sails break the
horizon for miles, and powries have magic of their own, do not doubt. It is said
that they have friends that swim under the sea, returning to them with whispers
of passing ships. This is not dumb luck, my good brother Pellimar."
"What could they know of us?" Quintall demanded, not turning back to face
the others.
"Only that we are a lone ship far from home," Adjonas was quick to answer.
"Of our mission?" Quintall pressed.
"Nothing," Adjonas assured him. "It is doubtful that any aboard the powrie
craft would even recognize your abbey robes."
Quintall nodded. "Then run away from them," he instructed.
Avelyn and the others held their breath as they watched Captain Adjonas'
face tighten. Avelyn feared that Quintall, in issuing such a clear order, might
have overstepped his bounds this time.
"Hard to port!" Adjonas screamed out, then he calmed and turned to his
first hand. "Fill our sails, Mister Smealy," he instructed. "I've no desire to
do battle with powries."
Smealy ran off. Adjonas let his dagger-throwing gaze linger on Quintall's
back for a long while, then calmly turned and, with a quick nod to the other
three monks, walked away.
Avelyn moved to the rail and shaded his eyes with his hand, peering hard
into the vast gray-blue expanse: He thought he caught sight of the barrelboat
but couldn't be sure -- it might have been no more than the shadow of a wave.
The Windrunner veered hard to port, sails filling and pushing the square-
rigged caravel on with tremendous speed. But the powries tailed her; the lookout
called down repeatedly, his tone growing thick with frustration and fear, that
the barrelboat was keeping pace, was even beginning to close a bit.
Now at the taffrail the four monks and Captain Adjonas watched the
powries' progress. Avelyn could see the craft clearly now; no longer did he
confuse the strange barrelboat with any wave shadows.
Adjonas looked up at his sails, then at his crew, tacking frantically to
keep them as full of wind as possible.
"An amazing design," Quintall remarked of the closing craft. "Why is it
that we humans have not copied it?"
"There is a human barrelboat in Freeport," Adjonas replied, "and several
were constructed in Ursal for use on the river. But men are not powries. The
quarters within such a boat are tight -- far tighter than even your small cabin
on the Windrunner. And men have not the powrie endurance. The dwarves can pedal
all day, while most men tire within the hour -- or after a couple of hours, at
most."
Quintall nodded, his respect for the stoic, tireless enemy redoubled. "If
the powries will not tire, then we cannot simply keep up the run," he remarked.
"I will set bowmen firing flaming arrows upon the vessel when it closes a
bit more," Adjonas answered, his tone far from hopeful. "But most of the craft
is underwater, with little above to aim at, and none of that critical. Hopefully
we will be able to keep our pace swift enough so that the powries' initial ram
causes little damage. Then we will fight them -- what choice do we have? -- as
they try to board us."
Quintall was shaking his head before Adjonas even finished. "We cannot
allow them to ram," he argued. "Any damage would slow us, at the least, and that
we cannot afford. We have less than a week of extra time -- and that if our
calculations to our destination are correct and the winds hold."
"I see few options," Adjonas remarked.
The other three monks were looking grimly at the distant barrelboat or at
each other, shaking their heads, but Quintall had turned his thoughts in a
different direction, digesting all the information that Adjonas had given him of
the enemy.
 "Tell me," he said at length, "how swift will a barrelboat run if its
great fan becomes entangled?"
Adjonas looked at him curiously.
"We have extra netting," Quintall added.
"The fan is not so exposed," Adjonas said. "Even if we placed the netting
perfectly in the barrelboat's path, it would not likely snag on anything except
the catch hooks protecting the fan."
"Suppose that we did not simply place the net but rather took it to its
destination?" Quintall asked slyly, drawing a confused look from all but
Thagraine, who had caught on and was more than eager.
"That would be foolhardy," Adjonas began, but he stopped as the hatch of
the barrelboat flipped open and a red-capped head popped into sight. Up came a
skinny arm, holding a funnel-shaped tube.
"Humans!" the powrie shouted through the funnel. "Yach, trader, give her
up! You cannot outrun us, yach you cannot, nor can you hope to give a, fight.
Give her up, I say, and some of you might be spared."
Adjonas looked all around at his now-stationary crew. He saw the
expressions there, the sudden faint hope in the powrie's promise.
Bunkus Smealy spoke for many of them by Adjonas' estimation. "Might that
we should harken to his words, Captain," the first hand said. "If we offer them
no fight --'
Adjonas pushed him aside and walked in from the rail so that all on deck
could see him. "They shall kill us, every one!" he shouted. "These are powries,
bloody caps, looking to wet their berets in human blood. They'll not let a ship
sail from them, nor do they have room for prisoners! If we stop, or even slow,
they'll only ram us all the harder."
Even as Adjonas spoke, a flaming quarrel arched over the taffrail of the
Windrunner, slashing into the rear sail. Three crewmen ran to. the small fire
immediately, minimizing the damage.
"Yach, how long can you keep up the run, trader?" the powrie howled, and
then he disappeared, closing the hatch behind him.
"Who are your best swimmers?" Quintall asked, moving up to the captain.
Adjonas looked at him curiously.
"The Windrunner is a ship of cold northern waters," he replied. "As a
habit, we do not swim."
Quintall nodded grimly and turned to his three brothers. He hated risking
them all but realized the success of the mission hinged on their actions right
now. Before he ever finished his motion, Avelyn, Pellimar, and Thagraine dropped
their robes to the deck and began stretching their muscles and swinging their
arms.
"We are swimmers," Quintall explained. "Even in the cold northern waters.
Fetch me a net."
Adjonas motioned to Bunkus Smealy; this was Quintall's operation now, and
the Windrunner captain, with no other apparent options, was more than willing to
give the sturdy monk his chance.
The four were at the port rail out of sight of the barrelboat soon after.
Quintall tossed the net into the water, and Thagraine went in right behind it,
taking hold.
Adjonas grabbed Quintall by the shoulder. He pulled a stone from his
baldric, a small red ruby, and handed it over. "Only if you see a need," he
explained. "That stone is, more valuable than all my ship."
Quintall looked it over curiously. He could feel the magic within it, a
faint pulsing of energy. He nodded to Adjonas, then unexpectedly handed the
stone to Avelyn. "Not a man alive knows the power of the stones better," he said
to his companion. "Use it well if we find the need."
Avelyn took it and fingered it for a few moments, feeling the energy
clearly, understanding the purpose of the stone as surely as if it had spoken to
him. He moved to put it in his loincloth but didn't feel secure with, that, so
he popped it into his mouth instead, rolling it behind his teeth.
Then they went in, swimming fast to join Thagraine, who was still bobbing
with the net, many yards behind the swift-running Windrunner.
They split into two groups, with Thagraine and Quintall holding the net
between them while swimming out to the side, trying to find an angle to the
closing barrelboat, and Pellimar and Avelyn putting themselves right in line
with the craft, keeping low in the water in case that hatch should open again or
in case the powries had some other method of looking out.
Adjonas watched nervously from the taffrail. He knew things about powries
and about the sea that the four monks apparently did not. If the barrelboat got
by the net holders, for example, they would never catch up and Adjonas couldn't
turn about for them. They would be stranded in open water, and thus, surely
doomed. Even more dangerous, powries were said to have waterborne friends, often
ones with a distinctive dorsal fin.
The captain nodded, confident that even if brave Quintall knew all of
this, he still would have gone into the South Mirianic with the net.
* * *
"Swim hard!" Quintall gurgled to his companion, moving fast to close the
remaining distance. The barrelboat was moving much more swiftly than it
appeared, for it cut no prow wake, as did the Windrunner. Thagraine worked as
furiously as he could, flailing arms and legs, but he would not have gotten to
the mark had not Quintall, the other end of the netting hooked about his broad
shoulders, tugged him along.
Exhausted, the two men dove under for the last expanse, swimming so the
craft would pass right over them. Fortunately, the water was crystal clear.
Up ahead, Avelyn and Pellimar waited anxiously. They would have to get
aboard the barrelboat, whatever the outcome of Quintall's attempt. If the net
failed, then these two would have to find some way to stop the powries. Avelyn
rolled his tongue over the ruby. The stone wouldn't be nearly strong enough, he
realized, to take out the wet barrelboat's sturdy hull.
The barrelboat closed -- fifty yards, forty, twenty -- cutting the water
smoothly.
Then it jerked suddenly and its straight run shifted to the diagonal.
Avelyn and Pellimar swam with all speed. Pellimar reached the drifting boat
first, pulling himself cautiously up its slick, rounded side. He shuffled for
the hatch and got there just after it opened.
The first powrie out was truly stunned. The fan had snagged on some
seaweed or on something the caravel had dropped, so the dwarves thought, and it
was not so uncommon an occurrence. But to see a human standing on the deck!
The sight was no less amazing to Pellimar, who had never seen a powrie up
close: The dwarf stood just over four feet, with gangly arms and legs that
seemed too skinny to support its barrel-like torso.
The dwarf's expression did not change, its pale, wrinkled face staring
openmouthed as Pellimar hit it with a solid right cross.
The monk stared at his wounded hand, and at his opponent, so much more
solid than it appeared! The hard-headed powrie shook its head vigorously, lips
flapping.
Pellimar hit it again, a series of three quick left jabs, then brought his
right leg up hard, snapping out his foot to connect right under the powrie's
jaw. The dwarf's head snapped back, and it fell to the deck and rolled over the
side of the barrelboat.
But another was in its place, this one not surprised. Pellimar, quick as a
cat, hit it, too, with three solid punches -- a left, right, left combination --
but the monk's impetus was lost when his right hand, still pained from the first
hit, connected that second time.
 Avelyn, rushing in behind his brother, saw Pellimar jerk suddenly and then
fall to the side, a bright red line across his chest. There before Avelyn stood
the powrie, its short sword dripping Pellimar's blood. The dwarf squealed in
rage, seeing its victim falling off the side, seeing a chance to heighten the
color of its already bright crimson beret tumbling into the Mirianic. That
moment of distraction gave Avelyn his chance.
He could have bent low and barreled into the dwarf, but he sensed its
solidity and saw another powrie coming through the hatch behind it. Putting his
personal safety aside, Avelyn had to consider the greater good.
He ran forward and slid down to the deck, scrambling fast and taking the
ruby from his mouth. He rubbed it in his hand, calling forth its magic, finding
its center of energy and bringing that to a volatile level.
The powrie came across with a backhand slash, but Avelyn managed to duck
beneath it. He reached between the powrie's legs and tossed the stone upward,
toward the hatch. Then, guided purely by his survival instinct, Avelyn curled
his legs under him and came up fast.
The ruby, shining with power, arced lazily over the open hatch. The next
powrie coming out saw its sparkle and, mesmerized, reached for it. The dwarf
caught the gem securely, but surrendered his hold on the ladder. Thus, when
Avelyn and the other powrie came up suddenly, rising over the stone holder, the
surprised dwarf fell back down into the barrelboat, glowing ruby in hand.
Avelyn clung to the powrie's sword arm, for all his life. He had one hand
below him and managed to push the hatch back as they descended, Avelyn rolling
right over the hatchway, the deceivingly agile powrie hopping to its feet atop
the now-closed portal. The dwarf lifted its sword, grinning evilly, and let out
a wail that shook Avelyn to the marrow of his bones :as he lay prone not far
away.
But then the dwarf was flying, the hatch spinning through the air behind
it, and a stream of thick black smoke poured from the open hole.
The jolt sent Avelyn tumbling, and he didn't fight the motion. The blast
had not likely killed half the powries -- the barrelboat was nearly as large as
the Windrunner! -- and they would be up on deck soon enough.
And Avelyn had no desire to face another.

Quintall and Thagraine came up breathless after setting the net in place.
By the time Quintall got near the barrelboat a powrie was in the water, and
Brother Pellimar was tumbling close behind.
With their heavy bodies and spindly limbs, powries were not strong
swimmers, and Quintall easily overtook the dazed creature, pushing it under the
water and gaining a seat atop its shoulders. The powrie struggled desperately,
but the powerful man locked his legs tight and fought to keep his balance.
The dwarf would not find the surface ever again.

Once in the water, Avelyn found Quintall treading high not so far away,
half his body clear of the sea. The sight surprised Avelyn at first until he
noted the "seat" his companion had
found. Thagraine, some distance to the side, had Pellimar under one arm,
swimming as hard as he could for the turning caravel.
As soon as his grim business was finished, Quintall, easily the strongest
swimmer, relieved Thagraine of his burden and nearly kept up with his two
companions, despite the added weight of an unconscious Pellimar.
Adjonas watched it all anxiously, moving along the rail as his ship
executed a turn. The barrelboat was disabled temporarily, but the fight was
hardly over. The captain ordered archers into place and told them to take
whatever shots presented themselves if the powries came out through that smoke,
which was already diminishing.
 Then he watched, because there was nothing else he could do. The
Windrunner came right about, bearing down on the four monks, and on the
barrelboat. There were indeed powries on her deck now, some with heavy
crossbows; taking potshots at the swimming monks.
Even worse for the monks, Adjonas knew, was the trail of blood the wounded
Pellimar was leaving in the water.
Thagraine was first to the Windrunner, grabbing frantically at a line
thrown from the deck. He had barely taken hold, Avelyn twenty yards away, and
Quintall and Pellimar that distance again, when the lookout gave a not
unexpected cry.
"Dorsal fin!" he shouted. "Shark, white shark!"
"Get them up quickly!" Adjonas howled, moving to the rope to lend a hand.
"More ropes into the water!"
One thrown rope splashed right near Avelyn, but understanding the frantic
lookout and the newest danger, he refused it, turning about for Quintall and
Pellimar.
"Brother Avelyn!" Thagraine shouted from his perch on the Windrunner's
rail. "You and I are the Preparers! They are expendable!"
The words assaulted Avelyn with the force of a cold slap. Expendable?
These were monks of St.-Mere-Abelle! These were human beings!
With a growl, Avelyn pushed on, finally reaching the tiring Quintall. To
Avelyn's surprise, Pellimar bobbed in the water behind the stocky man.
Avelyn asked no questions, nor did Quintall, who was swimming hard for the
rope. Avelyn finally reached Pellimar and hooked his arm around the bobbing
man's shoulder.
A crossbow quarrel skipped across the water right beside Avelyn's face as
he turned. He saw it, then -- a dorsal fin sticking fully two feet out of the
water -- and though he had never seen or heard of sharks before, he could well
imagine the horrors that lay beneath the telltale fin.
The shark closed, as did the Windrunner. A dozen men -- Quintall,
Thagraine, and Adjonas among them -- had the rope in hand and were pulling it
taut even as Avelyn desperately grabbed its other end.
He couldn't lift himself even a bit, had all that he could handle and more
in simply keeping his grasp on the rope and on limp Pellimar.
But they got him up to the rail, Quintall grabbing Pellimar and hauling
the man onto the deck, Avelyn dangling dangerously low. He heard the screams of
the crewmen and looked down, one foot still in the water, as the great dark
shape, fully twenty-five feet in length, glided under the Windrunner, under
Avelyn.
A split second later, the terrified monk was standing on the deck.
"Big one," Adjonas remarked, noting the shark.
Bunkus Smealy turned his greasy grin on Avelyn, holding one hand up, his
thumb and index finger about five inches apart. "With teeth this long," he said
cruelly.
There were a dozen powries on the deck of the barrelboat,
Adjonas noted, but none would go into the water with the great shark so
close and so obviously agitated. Powries and sharks worked in concert, so it was
said, but apparently there were limits to such friendship.
A wicked grin widened on the captain's face; he decided to test that
unlikely truce.
"Give them a bump," he told Bunkus Smealy, and the first hand shrieked
with glee and ran to the wheel.
It wasn't a full ram -- no sensible captain would pit his ship against the
strong hull of a powrie barrelboat -- but enough of a nudge certainly to send
all but one of the powries on deck rolling into the water. The Windrunner's
archers opened up hard as the ship crossed beside the powrie craft, leaving
three more dwarves dead in the water.
 A second, smaller dorsal fin joined the first in its tightening ring.
How the dwarves scrambled!
"Get us away," Adjonas called to his crew. The sharks would feed on the
dead, and the frantic actions of those still alive combined with the widening
blood spill would likely bring more in, he knew. No powrie would dare go into
the water to try and untangle the netted fan with frenzied sharks so close.
Even worse for the powries, though neither Adjonas nor any other aboard
the Windrunner could have foreseen it, the drifting barrelboat appeared
remarkably like a wounded whale to the crazed sharks.
The barrelboat, rolling from the contact with the Windrunner, with water
rushing in the open hatchway, soon disappeared under the waves.
The excitement on the Windrunner did not dissipate until the powries were
left far behind. The monks had been the heroes of the fight, but Avelyn heard
crewmen muttering "foolhardy" as often as "brave." The sailors were a tough
bunch, proud and cynical, and if he or Quintall or any of the others expected a
congratulatory pat on the back, they were disappointed.
Avelyn and Thagraine took the severely wounded Pellimar into Dansally's
quarters, and found the woman was versed in more skills than the sensual. Soon
after, the man was resting as comfortably as possible, and Avelyn left the room.
He found Quintall standing with Adjonas, the captain, looking weary,
leaning against the mainmast.
"Powries," he was muttering when Avelyn walked up. "More bloody caps than
ever on the Mirianic, north and south. They. have multiplied on their isles, the
Julianthes, it would seem, bursting from their shores. Their attacks will only
increase in number and in purpose."
Quintall shrugged away the grim words. "How fares Pellimar?" he asked
Avelyn.
Avelyn sighed helplessly. "He may live," he replied, "or he may not."
Quintall nodded, then suddenly exploded into action, his roundhouse punch
catching Avelyn square on the jaw, dropping the man in a heap to the deck. "How
dare you?" Quintall yelled.
Sailors looked up from every corner of the deck; Adjonas eyed the stocky
man with disbelief.
Avelyn pulled himself up, wary of another blow, thoroughly confused by
Quintall's actions.
"You are the chosen Preparer," Quintall scolded. "Yet you risked your life
to save Pellimar."
"We all risked our lives by going out," Avelyn argued.
"We had no choice in the matter," Quintall retorted, so angry that his
spittle sprayed forth with every word. "But when the danger to the Windrunner
was ended, when the powries were stopped and the way was clear, you went back
into the dangerous waters."
"Pellimar would have been eaten!"
"A pity, but not important!"
Avelyn swallowed his next retort, knowing that it would be a useless
argument. He had never imagined such a level of fanaticism, even from stern
Quintall. "I could not leave him, and you."
Quintall spat on the deck at Avelyn's feet. "I asked you not for help, and
would have -- refused it if offered. The way to our destination was cleared, the
threat to the Windrunner ended. You should have gone aboard and stayed aboard.
What a waste Pellimar's life, and my own, would have been had Avelyn, too, died
in the water!"
Avelyn had no response. The argument was indisputable. He pulled himself
up, nodding in agreement, though in his heart he knew if the situation arose
again he would again go back to the pair.
"We do not know that the way to Pimaninicuit is now clear," Adjonas
whispered, protecting the sacred name.
 "Pellimar is no good to us in any case," Quintall was fast to respond.
"Even if he lives, he'll not likely crawl out of bed for many days."
Avelyn studied the stocky man intently. The mission was all important --
Avelyn agreed and he would sacrifice his own life for the good of the voyage.
But to ask him to let another die?
Avelyn shook his head, though fortunately Quintall and Adjonas missed the
movement. No, the young monk decided, that he could not, would not, do.
"Remember," Quintall said to him gravely.
"I will go to Pellimar," Avelyn replied, taking comfort in the subtle vow
the words implied, one that Quintall could not comprehend. "Dansally tends his
wounds."
"Who?" Quintall asked as Avelyn walked away.
Avelyn smiled, not surprised.

Pellimar's condition did not much improve as the days slipped past. The
weather remained hot and clear, and no more barrelboats came into view.
Perhaps it was the boredom, the heat, or the tasteless provisions, but the
crew grew increasingly uneasy, even hostile. More than once, Avelyn heard Bunkus
Smealy and Adjonas in a shouting match, and every time. the monk walked the open
deck now, he felt burning gazes of hatred on his back. The crew were blaming the
monks for their discomfort, for this whole journey. Quintall had warned Avelyn
and Thagraine of this, as Adjonas had warned Quintall. The Windrunner was
usually a coast hugger. Journeys into the wide, vast ocean were extremely rare,
and rumors told of a madness that often grabbed at a crew. Ships had been found,
so the stories went, intact and seaworthy, but with not a crewman aboard. Some
said it was, the work of ghosts, or evil monsters of the deeper waters, but most
rational, experienced sailors attributed it to fear and suspicion, to the long
days of emptiness and the undeniable feeling that the sea would never end, that
the ship would sail and sail until there was no more to eat and no more to
drink.
It got so bad by the sixth week out of Jacintha that Adjonas, to Avelyn's
utter dismay, opened privileges of Dansally to other members of the crew. It had
to be done in a calm fashion, so the captain ordered, and every time Avelyn saw
another of the filthy sailors going to Dansally's door, his heart sank a bit
lower, and he chewed a bit more of his skin from his lip.
Dansally took it in stride, accepting her lot in life, but her expanded
duties left her little time for her talks with Avelyn, something the monk, and
now the woman, dearly needed.
Even the extra privileges did little to improve the mood of the
increasingly surly crew. The situation came to a frightening head one especially
hot humid morning. Quintall spent the better part of an hour in a sometimes
heated discussion with Captain Adjonas. Finally, Adjonas seemed to nod his
assent, and then he called Bunkus Smealy to his side.
More yelling ensued, mostly by Quintall, and when Smealy at last tried to
counter, the stocky monk snapped his hand under Smealy's chin and lifted the man
from the deck by the throat.
Avelyn and Thagraine rushed to Quintall's side, Thagraine pointing out
that all the crew was watching with more than passing interest.
"It proves my point, Captain Adjonas," Quintall remarked, giving Smealy a
little shake. "He is the leader of the unrest, a man to be thrown over as food
for the sharks."
Adjonas calmly put his hand over Quintall's arm, easing it and his first
hand down. Smealy pulled away, coughing and, predictably, turned to the crew for
help.
"Utter one word of encouragement to them," Quintall threatened, "and all
my attacks, and those of my companions, will be directed at you. Both your arms
and both your legs will be broken and useless when you hit the water, Bunkus
Smealy. How long could you stay afloat, waiting for the Windrunner to turn about
and find you?"
The greasy man blanched. "We're too far out," he said to his captain, his
plea sounding as a whine. "Too far!"
"The island --" Adjonas started to say.
Smealy stopped him with a snarl. "There ain't no island!" he yelled, and
the murmurs of the crewmen, seeming closer now than a moment before, were in
agreement.
Adjonas turned a worried glance at Quintall. They had another month of
sailing, at the least, and the captain honestly wondered if his crew would show
that much patience. They had been carefully picked, most had sailed with Adjonas
for nearly a decade, but weeks on end out of sight of land were unnerving.
"Three months!" the captain yelled suddenly. "Before ever we started from
Jacintha, I told you that we would find three months of travel before our
destination was reached. Yet, we've not yet marked the end of our second month
out of St.-Mere-Abelle. Are you cowards, then? Are you not men of your honor?"
That backed them off, though they continued grumbling.
"Know by my word," Quintall said to Smealy as the first hand, too,
retreated, "that I hold you personally responsible for the actions of the crew."
Smealy never blinked and didn't dare look away from the dangerous monk
until he was halfway across the deck.
"It will only worsen if Pimaninicuit is not easily found," Adjonas quietly
warned the three.
Quintall fixed him with an icy stare.
"We are on course, and on time," Adjonas assured him, feeling the need to
calm the man, "according to the maps I was given."
"They are accurate to the league," Quintall growled in response.

Indeed they were, for four and a half uneasy weeks later, the lookout
cried out, "Land to forward!"
All the crew rushed to the forward rails, and soon enough the gray haze
became more substantial, became the undeniable outline of an island, conical in
shape. Gray became green as they closed, lush vegetation thick on the slopes.
"By my estimation we have nearly a week to spare," Adjonas remarked to the
four monks -- for Pellimar, though still very weak, was up on the deck again.
"Should we go ashore and scout --"
"No!" Quintall snapped to everyone's amazement. The captain's
recommendation seemed perfectly logical.
"None but the Preparers may go ashore," Quintall explained. "Any others
who touch the shores of Pimaninicuit will find their lives forfeit."
It was a strange decree, one that caught Avelyn so much by surprise that
he hardly noticed Quintall had openly proclaimed the name of the island.
The words caught Captain Adjonas off his guard as well, an unexpected
proclamation and one that was hardly welcomed by Adjonas. His crew had been
aboard ship for so long, with only the short break in Entel. To keep them out
now, with land so close and inviting -- land likely covered with fruit trees and
other luxuries they had not known on the open sea -- was foolhardy indeed.
But Quintall would not relent. "Circle the island close once that we might
discern where best to put the Preparers ashore, then sail out to deeper water
out of sight of the island," he instructed the captain. "Then sail back in five
days."
Adjonas knew he was at a critical point here. He didn't agree with
Quintall, not at all, but now with Pimaninicuit in sight, he had, by agreement
with the Father Abbot, to let the monk take command. This was the purpose of the
voyage, after all, and Father Abbot Markwart had made. no secret of Adjonas'
place in all this. On the open seas, he was the captain; at Pimaninicuit, he
would do as told, or all payment, and the sum was considerable, would be
forfeit.
And worse.
So they circled, spotting one promising lagoon, and then sailed out to
deeper waters for the longest five days of the trip, particularly for Avelyn and
Thagraine.
Avelyn spent all the. list day in prayer and meditation, mentally
preparing himself for the task ahead. He wanted to go to Dansally and tell her
of his fears, of his inadequacy for such a task, but he resisted the urge. This
was his battle alone.
Finally, he and Thagraine, carrying their supplies, slipped down the rope
off the side of the Windrunner into the boat, Pimaninicuit looming large before
them.
"We need be far out when the showers begin," Quintall explained to them,
"for the stones have been known to cause great damage. When it is ended, we will
sail back here."
A cry from the stern stole the conversation, and the monks and Adjonas
turned as one to see one of the crew, a boy of no more than seventeen who had
been especially sea-crazed, dive off the ship into the water, then begin
swimming hard for the shore.
"Mister Smealy!" Adjonas roared; turning a stern eye on all the crew.
"Archers to the rail!"
"Let him go," Quintall said, surprising Adjonas. Quintall realized that
shooting the desperate man in front of the crew would likely cause a mutiny.
"Let him go!" Quintall yelled louder. "But since he has chosen the island, he
will find his work doubled." He bent low and whispered something to Thagraine
then, and Avelyn doubted that it had anything to do with putting the fleeing man
to work.
Avelyn and Thagraine rowed away from the Windrunner moments later and the
ship raised sail immediately, fleeing for the safety of the deeper waters far
from Pimaninicuit. On board Quintall launched right away into lies about the
dangers to the foolish seaman, about how the monks, and the monks alone, were
trained to withstand the fury of the showers. "He will not likely live to return
to the Windrunner," Quintall explained, trying to prepare the volatile crew for
the blow that would surely come.
Thagraine was out and running as soon as the small boat brushed its bottom
on the black sands of the island beach. They had passed the mutineer on the
water, far to the side, and Thagraine had made a mental note of his direction
and speed.
Avelyn called out to his companion, but Thagraine only ordered him to
secure the boat, and did not look back.
Avelyn felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He hauled the
boat to a sheltered point in the lagoon and tipped it low, filling it with water
and securing it on the shallow bottom.
Thagraine returned to him soon after.
Avelyn winced, seeing the man alone. He knew what instructions Quintall
had offered.
"There is much to eat," Thagraine said happily, trembling with excitement.
"And we must seek out a cave."
Avelyn said nothing, just followed quietly, praying for the young sailor's
soul.
The next two days, mostly spent huddled in a small cave on the side of the
single mountain, overlooking the beach and the wide water, were perfectly
unbearable. Thagraine was most ill at ease, pacing, stalking, and muttering to
himself.
Avelyn understood the man's distress and knew that Thagraine's agitation
could cost them both much when the showers came. "You killed him," the younger
monk remarked quietly, taking care so that his statement did not sound as an
accusation.
Thagraine stopped his pacing. "Any who step on Pimaninicuit forfeit their
lives," he replied, straining hard to keep his tone even.
Avelyn didn't believe a word of it; in his mind, Thagraine had acted as a
tool for the murderous Quintall.
"How will they know when we are finished?" Thagraine asked suddenly,
wildly. "How will they even know when the showers occur if they sail so far from
the island?"
Avelyn eyed him carefully. He had hoped to draw the man into a discussion
of his action against the sailor, to ease the man's mind, at least for now, that
they might concentrate on their most important mission. But his words hardly
seemed to calm Thagraine; quite the opposite, the man, obviously racked with
guilt paced all the more furiously, slapping his hands together repeatedly.
The showers, by their calculations, were now overdue. Still the pair
huddled near the edge of the cave, looking for some sign.
"Is it even true?" Thagraine protested every few minutes. "Is there a man
alive who can bear witness to such a thing?"
"The old tomes do not lie," Avelyn said faithfully.
"How do you know?" Thagraine exploded. "Where are the stones, then? Where
is the precious day?" He stopped, gasping for breath. "Seven generations," he
shouted, "and we are to get here within the week of the showers? What folly is
this? Why, if the abbey's calculations are off by only a month, or a year
perhaps . . . are we to stay huddled in a hole all that time?"
"Calm, Thagraine," Avelyn murmured. "Hold fast your faith in Father Abbot
Markwart and in God."
"To the pit of Hell with Father Abbot Markwart!" the other monk howled.
"God?". He spat contemptuously. "What does God know when he calls for the death
of a frightened boy?"
So that was it, Avelyn realized: guilt, pure and simple. Avelyn moved to
take Thagraine's hand, to try and offer comfort, but the older monk shoved him
away and scrambled out the narrow mouth of the cave, running off into the brush.
"Do not!" Avelyn cried, and he paused only a moment before following. He
lost sight of Thagraine immediately, the monk disappearing into the thick
underbrush but headed, predictably, for the open beach. Avelyn moved to follow,
but as soon as he got out of sight of the cave, something, some inner voice,
called to him to stop. He looked back in the direction of the cave, then out
over the hillside to the water. He noted that the sky had turned a funny color,
a purplish, rosy hue the likes of which Avelyn had only seen at sunrise or
sunset, and then only on the appropriate horizon. Yet the sun, in this region of
long days, was still hours from the western rim and should have been shining
bright and yellow in the cloudless sky.
"Damnation," Avelyn sputtered, and he scrambled with all speed back to the
shelter of the cave. Inside, from that higher perch, he spotted Thagraine,
running wildly along the beach, and he saw, too, a gentle rustling on the water
far out from the shore.
Avelyn closed his eyes and prayed.
* * *
"Where are you, damned God?" Thagraine cried, stumbling along the black
sands of Pimaninicuit. "What cost do you exact from your faithful? What lies do
you tell?"
He stopped then, suddenly, hearing the splashing.
He grabbed at his arm a moment later, felt a line of blood there, and
noticed a small stone, a smoky crystal, lying on the black sand before him.
Thagraine's eyes widened as surely as if God himself had answered his
questions. He looked back and turned and ran with all speed for the cave, crying
for Avelyn every step.
 Avelyn couldn't bear to watch, nor could he bear to look away. Fiery rocks
streaked down before the cave entrance, slicing holes in the wide leaves of
trees and bushes. The rocky hail was light for some time, gradually increasing
to the point where it punished the very ground of Pimaninicuit.
And through the deluge, Avelyn heard his name. He peered out, stunned, as
a torn and battered Thagraine came into view beyond the thinned foliage, the man
bleeding in so many places that he seemed one great wound. He stumbled forward
pitifully, holding out his arms toward the cave.
Avelyn set his feet under him. He knew that it was foolhardy for him to go
out, but how could he not? He could make it, he told himself grimly. He could
get to Thagraine and shelter the man back to the cave. He tried not to think of
the choice that would then befall him, of tending to either Thagraine or to the
sacred stones, for his period of opportunity for sealing the enchantment of the
stones was narrow indeed.
But Avelyn would have to worry about that when the time came. Thagraine
was barely twenty strides away, stumbling forward, when Avelyn started out.
He saw it at once, a dark blot high above, and he knew, somehow he knew,
its deadly path.
Thagraine spotted him then, a hopeful, pitiful, smile widening on his
bloody face.
The stone streaked down like an aimed arrow, smashing into the back of
Thagraine's head, laying him out flat on the ground.
Avelyn fell back into the cave, into his prayers.
The storm intensified over the next hour, wind and rocky rain pounding the
island, battering the ground above Avelyn's hole so forcefully that the monk
feared it would collapse upon him.
But then, as abruptly as it began, it ended, and the skies cleared quickly
to deep blue.
Avelyn came out, frightened but determined. He went right to Thagraine, a
torn and bloody pulp. Avelyn meant to turn him over, but he could not find his
breath when he looked at the fatal wound, a gaping hole smashed right through
Thagraine's skull, brain matter splattered all about.
The object of Thagraine's death, a huge purple amethyst, held Avelyn's
attention. Gently, reverently, Avelyn reached into the back of his dead
companion's head and pulled forth the stone. He could feel the power thrumming
within it, the likes of which he had never before imagined. Surely this was
greater than any stone at St.-Mere-Abelle! And the size of it! Avelyn's hands
were large indeed, yet even with his fingers fully extended he could not touch
all edges of the stone.
He went to work, put all thoughts of Thagraine and of the boy Thagraine
had killed far out of his mind, and went with furor to the task he had trained
to do for all these years. He prepared the amethyst first, coating it with
special oils, giving it some of his own energy through intense prayer and
handling.
Then he went on, letting his instincts guide him to which stones were the
most full of heavenly energy. Many showed no magical power at all, and Avelyn
soon realized that these were the remnants of previous showers, brought up to
the surface by the battering of the storm. He selected an egg-sized hematite
next, and then a ruby, small but flawless to his trained eye.
On and on he went. Only those stones he selected and treated would hold
their power; the others would become the waste of Pimaninicuit, buried by the
black sands and the resurgent foliage over the next seven generations.
Late that night, the monk fell; thoroughly exhausted, upon the beach
bordering the lagoon. He did not wake up until long after the dawn, his precious
cargo intact in his pack. Only then did Avelyn take the time to note that
dramatic change that had come over Pimaninicuit. No longer did the island seem
so plush and inviting. Where trees and thick brush had grown was now only
battered pulp and blasted stone.
It took great effort for the monk to get the sunken boat raised and
floating, but he somehow managed. He thought that he should fill it with fruits
or some other delicacy, but in looking around at the near total devastation,
Avelyn realized that opportunity was lost. On another note, Avelyn could not
help but laugh at the absurd, useless treasure that lay strewn all about him. In
an hour's time, he could collect enough precious -- though non-magical --
gemstones to finance the building of a palace finer than that in Ursal. In a
day, he could have more wealth than any man in all Honce-the-Bear, in all the
world, perhaps, including the fabulously rich tribal chieftains of Behren. But
his orders concerning Pimaninicuit had been explicit and unyielding: only those
stones treated to retain their magic could be brought from the island. Any other
gems taken would be considered an insult to God himself. The gift of the showers
was given to two monks only, and whatever they might prepare, they might take.
Not a ruby, not a smoky quartz, more.
Thus, Avelyn simply sat staring outward, too overwhelmed even to eat, and
waited for the Windrunner.
The sails came into sight late the next day. Like a robot, beyond feeling,
Brother Avelyn got into the boat and pushed away. Only then did he think that
perhaps he should retrieve the body of Thagraine, but he decided against that
course.
What better fate and final resting place for an Abellican monk?

CHAPTER 19
Truth Be Told

He hardly noted the passing of the days, the weeks, so enthralled was he with
the horde of God-given treasures. While Adjonas tended to the crew and their
course, the three remaining monks -- even Pellimar, whose condition had steadily
improved -- worked with the stones. The powrie slash had not been without
consequence to Pellimar, though, tearing the muscles about the monk's left
shoulder. His arm hung practically useless, with no sign that it would ever
improve.
They encountered no powries on the voyage back from Pimaninicuit, and
Avelyn wasn't concerned in any case. He above all others sensed the throbbing
powers of some of the gemstones. If a barrelboat showed itself, Avelyn was
confident he could use any one of a dozen different stones to, destroy it
utterly.
Most intriguing of all was the giant purple amethyst, with so many
different crystal shafts. Its bottom was nearly flat, and placed on the floor it
resembled some strange purple bush, with stems of various heights rising at many
angles. Avelyn could not discern the purpose of the magic, except to note that
there was a tremendous amount of energy stored within those crystals.
Some of the stones, such as the hematite, were placed in a small tumbler
and rolled for hours on end, smoothing them to a perfect finish. Others had to
be treated with oils for many days, that their magic be locked permanently
within them. All three monks knew the process, and knew each stone, except for
that amethyst.
They couldn't tumble it -- it was too large for the container -- and they
hardly knew where to begin with their oils. Avelyn made it his personal work,
and he treated the giant crystal with prayers, not physical salves. He felt as
if he was giving a bit of himself to the stone each time, but that was
acceptable, as if it were soiree communion with his God.
The talk. among the monks did not turn often to poor Thagraine -- they
prayed for him and, in their minds and hearts, put him to rest -- but among the
grumbling crew, little vas whispered that did not concern Taddy Sway, the youth
who had tried for the island and who had not returned. Avelyn felt burning,
accusing eyes on his back every time he walked the deck.
Whispers bred open talk in the heat and boredom of the passing days, and
open talk bred accusing shouts. Avelyn, Pellimar, and most of all, Quintall,
were not surprised then, one early morning, when Captain Adjonas came to them,
warning of a mounting call for mutiny.
"They want the stones," Adjonas explained. "Or at least, some of the
stones, in exchange for the life of Taddy Sway."
"They cannot even begin to understand the power of these gems," Quintall
protested.
"But they understand the value of a ruby or an emerald," Adjonas pointed
out, "even without the magic."
Avelyn bit his lip, remembering the hours on the beach, surrounded by so
vast a wealth of useless gems.
"Your crew is being well paid for the voyage," Quintall reminded the
captain.
"Extra compensation for the lost man," Adjonas remarked.
"They knew the risks.
"Did they?" the captain asked sincerely. "Did they suspect that the four
men they carried might turn against them?"
Quintall stood up and walked to stand right before the captain, the monk
seeming even more imposing because Adjonas had to stoop belowdecks, whereas
Quintall could stand at his full height.
"I am only echoing their sentiments," Adjonas explained, not backing off
an inch. "Words that Quintall should hear. We are three months yet from St.-
Mere-Abelle."
Quintall glanced around the tiny cabin, eyes narrowed as he planned his
next move. "We must end it this day," he decided, and he moved to Avelyn's cot
and took one of the gemstones, an orange-brown stone marked by three black lines
-- a tiger's paw, it was called -- from the tumbling box.
The stocky monk led the way to the deck, the other three close behind.
Quintall's physical attitude as he came out alerted the crew that something
important was about to happen, and they quickly gathered around the group,
Bunkus Smealy at their lead.
"There will be no compensation for Taddy Sway," Quintall said bluntly.
"The foolish youth forfeited his life when he swam to the island."
"Ye killed him!" one man cried.
"I was on the Windrunner," Quintall reminded.
"Yer monks, I mean!" the man insisted.
Quintall neither denied nor confirmed the execution. "The island was for
two men alone, and even one of them, trained for years to survive Pim -- the
island, did not return."
Bunkus Smealy turned about and waved his hand forcefully, quieting the
rising murmurs. "We're thinking that ye owe us," he said, turning back to
Quintall. He tucked his hands into his rope belt, taking on an important
attitude.
Quintall measured him carefully. He understood then that Smealy was the
linchpin, the organizer, the would-be captain.
"Captain Adjonas does not agree," Quintall said evenly, coaxing the mutiny
to the surface.
Smealy turned a wicked grin on the captain. "Might not be Captain Adjonas'
decision," he said.
"The penalties for mutiny --' Adjonas began, but Smealy stopped him short.
"We're knowing the rules," Smealy assured him loudly. "And we're knowing,
too, that a man has got to be caught to be hung. Behren's closer than Honce-the-
Bear, and they're not for asking many questions in Behren."
 There -- he had played his hand, and now it was time for Quintall to take
that hand and crush it. Smealy's eyes widened when he looked back at the stocky
monk, when he heard the low growl coming from Quintall's throat, when he looked
at the man's arm and saw not a human appendage but the paw and claws of a great
tiger!
"What?" the old sea dog started to ask as Quintall, faster then Smealy
could possibly react, raked the man chin to belly.
The horrified crew fell back.
"He killed me," Smealy whispered, and then, true to his words, with three
great lines of bright blood erupting across his neck and chest, he fell limp to
the deck.
Quintall's roar, truly the roar of a tiger, sent the crew scrambling.
"Know this!" the transformed monk bellowed from a face that looked human
but with a voice that sounded much greater. "Look upon dead Bunkus Smealy and
see the fate of any other who speaks against Captain Adjonas or the brothers of
St.-Mere-Abelle!"
Given the expressions on the crewmen, Avelyn thought it unlikely that any
of them would utter another mutinous whisper all the way back to the coast and
to St.-Mere-Abelle.
The three monks exchanged not a word as they went back to their cabin, nor
for the rest of that day. Avelyn took care to keep his accusing gaze away from
Quintall. His mind swirled in a hundred different directions. He had come to
know Bunkus Smealy well over the last few months and, though he was not overfond
of the weasely man, he could not help but feel some sense of loss.
And agitation. The cool and callous, way Quintall had dispatched the man,
had murdered a human being, shook gentle Avelyn to his very bones. This was not
the way of the Abellican Church, at least not in Avelyn's mind, and yet the
efficiency of the executions of Taddy Sway and now of Bunkus Smealy made Avelyn
suspect that Quintall was acting as he had been instructed by the masters before
they had left port. The mission was vital, true enough, the greatest moment in
seven generations. Avelyn and the other monks would give their lives willingly
to see the mission successful. But to kill without remorse?
He chanced a look at Quintall early the next day as the man went about his
business. He remembered the emotional torture the execution had exacted on
Thagraine, the restlessness. None of that was evident in the dark, stocky man.
Quintall had killed Bunkus. Smealy as he had drowned the powrie, without
distinction of the fact that the victim this time was not an evil dwarf but a
human being.
A shudder coursed down Avelyn's spine. Without remorse. And Avelyn knew
when they returned to the abbey, when their tale was told in full, the masters,
even Father Abbot Markwart, would only nod their agreement with Quintall's
brutal actions.
Avelyn could appreciate their notion of the "greater good," for that would
surely be the excuse given, but somehow all of this was out of line with
justice, and justice was supposedly among the major tenets of the Abellican
Church.
For Brother Avelyn, who had just been through the most sacred event, who
had just realized the most religious experience by far of all his young life,
something here seemed terribly out of place.

The month had turned to Parvespers, the last month of the autumn, when the
Windrunner swept around the northeastern reach of the Mantis Arm, past Pireth
Tulme and into the Gulf of Corona. Cold winds and stinging spray buffeted the
crew. At night, they huddled together around oil lamps and candles, trying to
ward off the chill. But their spirits were high, every man. All thoughts of
Taddy Sway and Bunkus Smealy were behind them now, for their destination and
their reward were at hand.
 "Will ye stay in the abbey, then?" Dansally asked Avelyn one crisp
morning. Land was out of sight again as the Windrunner cut a direct course
across the gulf to All Saints Bay.
Avelyn considered the question with a most curious expression. "Of
course," he finally answered.
Dansally's shrug was telling to the perceptive monk. He realized suddenly
that she was asking him for companionship! "Do you mean to leave the ship?" he
asked.

"Might," Dansally replied. "We'll be puttin' in three times between St.-Mere-

Abelle and Palmaris, where Adjonas means to dock for winter."
"I have to . . . " Avelyn began. "I mean, there is no choice before me.
Father Abbot Markwart will need a full accounting, and I will be at work for
months with the stones I collected --"
She silenced him by putting a finger gently across his lips, her eyes soft
and moist.
"Would that I could come and visit ye then," she said quietly. "Might that
be allowed?"
Avelyn nodded, fairly stricken mute.
"Would ye be bothered?"
Avelyn shook his head rather vigorously. "Master Jojonah is a friend," he
explained. "Perhaps he could find you work."
"On me back in an abbey?" the woman asked incredulously.
"Different work," Avelyn answered with a chuckle, hiding his discomfort at
the notion. Those wicked stories of Bien deLouisa flitted through his memory.
"But would Captain Adjonas let you off the ship?" he asked, to change the
uncomfortable course down which his mind was flying.
"Me contract was for the isle and back," she replied. "We'll soon be back.
Adjonas got nothing on me after Palmaris. I'll get me pay -- and more for the
favors I did for the rest of the crew -- and be gone."
"Then will you come to the abbey?" Avelyn asked, showing more emotion,
more hopefulness, than he had intended.
Dansally's smile was wide. "Might that I will," she answered. "But first,
ye got to do something for me." As she finished talking, she leaned closer,
putting her lips to his. Avelyn recoiled instinctively, out of shyness. When he
thought about his hesitation, it only strengthened his resolve. His relationship
with Dansally was special, was something different from the physical connection
she had with other men. Surely his body wanted what she offered, but if he gave
in now, then would he be lessening that special bond, reducing his relationship
with Dansally to the level of all the others?
"Don't ye pull away," she pleaded, "not this time."
"I could bring Quintall to you," Avelyn said, a bitter edge to his voice.
Dansally fell back and slapped him across the face. He meant to respond
with an insult, but by the time he recovered, he noted that she was kneeling on
the bed, head down, shoulders moving with sobs.
"I -- I did not mean ..." Avelyn stuttered, feeling horrible about
wounding his precious Dansally.
"So ye think I'm a whore," she said. "And so I am."
"No," Avelyn replied, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"But I'm more a virgin than ye know!" the woman snapped, head coming up so
that her gaze, her proud gaze, could lock with Avelyn's. "Me body does its work,
'tis true, but me heart's never been there. Not once! Not even with me worthless
husband -- might that be why he threw me out!"
The thought that Dansally had never loved caught Avelyn off his guard and
settled him back for a bit. Though he was completely inexperienced in physical
lovemaking, he understood what she was saying.
And he believed her!
 He didn't answer, except to lean forward and offer a kiss.
Brother Avelyn learned much about love that day, learned the completeness
of body and spirit in a way more profound than his morning exercise could ever
approach.
So did Dansally.

The Windrunner was welcomed at St.-Mere-Abelle with understated

efficiency, just a handful of monks, Masters Jojonah and Siherton among them,
coming down to the docks to greet the returning brothers and their precious
cargo, and to direct the lesser monks in carrying aboard ship a pair of heavy
chests. A new wharf had been constructed, reaching far enough out into the bay
so that the Windrunner could dock.
To mollify his crew, Adjonas had the chests opened as soon as they were
brought on deck, and how the men gasped!
Avelyn did, too, noting the piles of coins and gems and jewelry, such a
treasure as he had never before seen. Something beyond the rich materials caught
his eyes, though; as the lids were being secured in place once more. He didn't
quite understand it, nor could he make out the aura of magic surrounding Master
Siherton. The man had one of his hands behind his back, and Avelyn noted that he
was fingering a pair of stones, a diamond and a smoky quartz.
Suspicious, but wise enough to keep his mouth shut, Avelyn bid farewell to
Adjonas and the others -- though not a man aboard the Windrunner regretted the
departure of the three monks -- and went ashore. His thoughts were on Dansally,
hoping she would indeed leave the Windrunner at next port and make her way to
St.-Mere-Abelle. Logically, Avelyn knew that she would indeed, knew that they
had shared something precious. But still his doubts lingered. Had their
encounter really been special to Dansally? How had he measured. up against all
the men she had known? Perhaps he hadn't really done it right, or perhaps
Adjonas had ordered her to bed Avelyn, or even had made a wager with her that
she could not bed the man.
Avelyn fought hard to dismiss all those ridiculous notions and doubts.
Whatever logic assured him, Avelyn knew that he would not relax until he saw the
dark-haired woman's blue eyes again, eyes to which Avelyn had brought back a
good measure of sparkle, at the gates of St.-Mere-Abelle.
The reception awaiting the three returned monks inside the abbey was more
in tune with what they had been expecting. The chapel hall was lined with the
finest baked goods from all the region -- muffins and sweet rolls, cinnamon and
raisin breads -- all to be washed down with mead and even some of the rare and
precious wine known as boggle. The choir was there, singing joyously. The Father
Abbot watched from his high perch on the balcony, and all the monks of the order
and all the servants of the abbey danced and sang, and laughed the whole night
through.
How Avelyn wished that Dansally were there! That thought led him to wonder
why she and the others of the Windrunner had not been invited. With the tides,
the ship could not put out Until after midnight, so why hadn't the thirty, or at
least the captain, been included in the much deserved festivities?
The last bite, of a cinnamon roll turned over in Avelyn's stomach, a
sinking feeling. A group of monks were walking toward him -- he recognized
Brother Pellimar among them -- no doubt to pester him about the events on the
island. Avelyn knew that he could say nothing about that time until he had
reviewed his words with the Father Abbot.
And at that moment, the young monk had other things on his mind. He
considered the stones Master Siherton had carried to the ship: a diamond and a
smoky quartz. He knew the properties of diamonds, the creation of light, but had
never used quartz. Avelyn closed his eyes, ignoring the call of his name by
Pellimar, and reviewed his training.
 Then it came to him in a sudden, horrifying rush. Diamonds not for light
but sparkles! Quartz to create an image that was not real! The crew and captain
of the Windrunner had been cheated! Now Avelyn knew why Adjonas was not at the
gathering, and as he considered the implications, his gut churned violently.
Avelyn rushed past the approaching group, muttering something about
speaking with them soon, then ran about the room, taking a mental count of those
in attendance. He noted with mounting trepidation that not all of the monks were
in attendance, that one group in particular, the older students, tenth-year
immaculates, those men on the verge of becoming masters, were absent.
Neither could he find Master Siherton.
Avelyn ran from the chapel, skittering down the empty halls, his footsteps
echoing noisily. He didn't know the hour but suspected that midnight was near or
that it had come and gone.
He ran for the south side of the abbey, the seaward side, and turned into
one long corridor, its left-hand wall dotted with small windows that overlooked
the bay. Avelyn rushed to one and peered out desperately into the night.
Under the light of a half moon, he saw the outline of the Windrunner
gliding out into the bay. "No," he breathed, noting the bustle on the deck, tiny
silhouettes rushing past a small fire near the stern. He saw a second fire on
the water.
"No!" Avelyn screamed.
Another ball of flaming pitch soared out from the monastery, skipping in
along the starboard rail of the vessel, igniting the mainsail into one
tremendous flame.
The barrage intensified, more pitch, great heavy stones, and giant
ballista bolts battering the ill-fated craft. Soon the Windrunner was adrift,
the strong currents of All Saints Bay taking her toward a dangerous reef. Avelyn
winced, seeing men leaping from the deck, their doom at hand.
The screams of the crew drifted across the dark water; Avelyn knew that
the other monks, at their celebration, would not hear. He watched helplessly;
hopelessly, as the ship that had been his home for nearly eight months jolted
and listed, then broke apart on the reef as still more missiles soared in. Tears
ran freely down his cheeks; he mumbled the name "Dansally," over and over.
The bombardment went on for many minutes. Avelyn heard the people in the
cold water, and hoped against hope that some of them, that his dear Dansally,
might make it to shore.
But then came the worst thing of all -- a hissing, sizzling noise. A
bluish film covered the dark water, snapping and crackling off the stones and
the sailors, off the remnants of the proud ship. A sheet of conjured lightning
silenced the screams forever.
Except in Avelyn's mind.
More missiles went out, though their task was certainly finished. The
strong ebb tide of All Saints Bay would collect the flotsam and jetsam and carry
it out to the open sea. All the world, save Avelyn and the perpetrators, would
think this a tragic accident.
"Dansally," Avelyn breathed. His shoulders slumped, the young man needing
the stone wall for support. He rolled away from the window, putting his back to
the wall, facing the corridor.
"You should not have come," Master Siherton said to him, the tall, hawkish
man standing quietly.
Avelyn noted the considerable bag, of stones at his belt and the grayish
graphite he held in his hand. Graphite was the stone of lightning.
Avelyn slumped back against the wall even more, thinking Siherton would
use the stone to destroy him then and there and, in many ways, hoping Siherton
would do just that. The master only reached out and grabbed Avelyn by the arm
and led him to a small, dark room in one far corner of the massive abbey.
 The next morning, a crestfallen Brother Avelyn was in Father Abbot
Markwart's private quarters, Masters Siherton and Jojonah flanking him. It stung
Avelyn even more to realize that the actions taken against the Windrunner had
not been a rogue decision by brutal Siherton but had been sanctioned by the
Father Abbot, apparently with Master Jojonah's knowledge.
"There can be no witnesses to the location of Pimaninicuit," Father Abbot
Markwart said evenly.
As there will be no witnesses to my death, Avelyn thought, for the
corridors of St.-Mere-Abelle had been deserted that morning, the monks and
servants sleeping off their evening of revelry..
"Do you realize the implications to the world?" Markwart said suddenly,
excitedly. "If Pimaninicuit became common knowledge, the security of the Ring
Stones would be lost and petty merchants and kings would hold the secret to
wealth and power beyond their comprehension!"
It made sense to Avelyn that, for the security of the world, the location
of Pimaninicuit should remain secret, but that thought did little to erase his
revulsion at the destruction of the hired ship and the murder of her crew.
And the murder of Dansally.
"There could be no other outcome," Markwart said flatly.
Avelyn glanced around nervously. "May I speak, Father Abbot?"
"Of course," Markwart replied, resting back in his chair. "Speak freely,
Brother Avelyn. You are among friends."
Avelyn tried hard to keep his expression calm at that absurd notion. "All
aboard the ship would have been long dead before the next occurrence of the
stone showers," he argued.
"Sailors make maps," Master Siherton said dryly.
"But why would they?" Avelyn protested. "The map would be of no use to
them, since seven generations --"
"You are forgetting the wealth strewn about Pimaninicuit," Father Abbot
Markwart interrupted, "a treasure trove of jewels beyond imagination."
Avelyn hadn't thought of that. Still he shook his head. The journey was
too treacherous, and if the crew had been well paid, as promised, they would
have had no reason to dare the perils of the South Mirianic again.
"It was God's will," Markwart said with finality. "All of it. You are to
speak nothing of what you have witnessed. Return now to the room that Master
Siherton assigned to you. Your punishment will be determined and revealed later
this same day."
Avelyn's thoughts whirled, too confusing a jumble for him to utter even a
sound of protest. He staggered away as if he had been struck. Markwart verbally
hit him again when he got to the door.
"Brother Pellimar succumbed this morning to his grievous wounds," the
Father Abbot informed Avelyn.
Avelyn turned, stunned. Pellimar would carry scars forever, but surely he
had mended. Then Avelyn understood. The previous night, at the party, Pellimar
had been loose with his tongue. Too loose. Even to utter the, name of the island
without Father Abbot's permission was forbidden.
"A pity," Markwart went on. "That leaves only you and Quintall of the four
who went to Pimaninicuit. You will have much work before you."
Avelyn stepped out of the room, into the stone corridor, and vomited all
over the floor. He staggered away, half blind, half insane.
"He is being watched?" Markwart asked Siherton.
"Every step," the tall master replied. "All along, I feared this response
from him."
Master Jojonah snorted. "Avelyn worked alone on Pimaninicuit, yet the
hoard he retrieved is inarguably the finest ever brought back from the island.
How can you doubt his value?"
 "I do not," Siherton replied. "I only wonder when those qualities that
give Avelyn such value will become dangerous."
Jojonah looked at Markwart, who was nodding grimly. "He has much work to
do," the Father Abbot told them both. "Committing his adventures to the page,
cataloguing the stones, even seeking out their true strength and deepest
secrets. The crystal amethyst most of all. Never have I seen such a magnificent
stone, and Avelyn, as its Preparer, has the finest chance to discern its true
measure."
"Perhaps I can persuade him to our way of thinking before he is finished
his work," Jojonah offered.
"That would be most fine," replied Markwart.
Siherton gave his fellow master a dubious glance. He did not believe that
Avelyn, so full of idealism and ridiculous faith, could be corralled.
Jojonah noted the look and could not disagree. He would try, though, for
he was fond of young Brother Avelyn and he knew the alternative.
"The summer solstice," Father Abbot Markwart remarked. "At that time, we
will discuss the future of Brother Avelyn Desbris."
"Or lack thereof," Master Siherton added, and from his tone, it wasn't
hard for Jojonah to figure out which event would most please the hawkish, brutal
man.

Avelyn found himself secluded from the rest of the monks over the next few
weeks. His only contacts were with Siherton, Jojonah, and a couple of other
masters, as well as the pair of
guards -- more tenth -- year immaculates, who remained with him wherever he went
and Quintall, who was often at work beside him in the room of the Ring Stones.
Disturbing questions haunted the young monk every day. Why did they have
to kill the men of the Windrunner? Couldn't Father Abbot Markwart have simply
imprisoned them? Or, if this procedure was always the case, then why didn't the
monastery simply man its own ship and send only trusted monks to Pimaninicuit?
Every logical argument ran smack into a wall, though, for Avelyn knew that
he would not impress any change over his superiors and the way of the Abellican
Order. And so he worked, as he was instructed, penning the tale of his
adventures in great detail, studying and cataloguing the newest stones, their
type, their magic, their strength. Whenever he was allowed to handle a magical
stone, Master Siherton was at his side, a potent and lethal gem in hand.
Avelyn realized his place now, and truly he felt like one of the
Windrunner's crew. His only solace came in his many discussions with Master
Jojonah, to whom he still felt a bond. But while Jojonah continually tried to
explain the necessity for the actions taken upon the monks' return, Avelyn
simply would not accept it.
There had to be a better way, he believed, and despite the potential for
disaster, there could be no justification for murder.
The spring of 822 was late when his work neared completion, and Avelyn
noted with some concern that Master Jojonah spoke with him less and less, noted
with some concern the tender master's sympathetic expression whenever he looked
upon Avelyn.
Avelyn grew uneasy, and then desperate. So much so that he chanced to
pocket a gemstone, a hematite, one day. Fortune was with him, for a mistake by
Quintall caused a minor explosion that afternoon, and though no one was hurt and
nothing too badly damaged, it proved enough of a distraction for the theft to go
unnoticed, at least for the moment.
Back in his cell, Avelyn fell into the powers of the stone. He didn't
really know what he would do, other than spy on the masters and confirm his
fears of his approaching fate.
His spirit walked free of his body, passed through the porous wood of the
door and past the pair of oblivious guards. Avelyn felt that tug of the stone,
wanting possession, but his will was strong and he resisted, floating invisibly
down the corridor and finally to Father Abbot Markwart's door.
Inside, Avelyn glimpsed Siherton and Jojonah with the Father Abbot, the
old man livid about the mishap in the stone room.
"Brother Quintall is a bumbler," Jojonah pointed out.
"But a loyal one," Siherton snapped back, an obvious comparison to Avelyn.
"Enough of this," demanded Markwart. "How goes the work?"
"The cataloguing is nearly complete," answered Siherton. "We are ready for
the merchants."
"What of the giant crystal?"
"We have found no practical use for it," Siherton replied. "Avelyn --
Brother Avelyn" he corrected with a derisive snort, "is convinced that it is
thick with magic, but how to extract that magic and what purpose it might serve,
we do not know."
"It would be folly to auction it," Jojonah put in.
"It would not bring a good price unless we could determine its powers,"
Father Abbot Markwart agreed.
"There are merchants who would purchase it simply for the mystery,"
Siherton argued.
Avelyn could hardly believe what he was hearing. They were talking about a
private auction of the sacred stones! How much that notion diminished the
sacrifice of Thagraine and Pellimar, of the Windrunner's crew and of Dansally!
The thought of unbelieving merchants plying the gift of the stones, to amuse
guests, perhaps, or even for sinister purposes, wounded Avelyn deeply. His
spirit drifted out of the room, unable to bear any more of the sacrilegious
talk.
He was heading back for his physical coil when he realized that time was
against him. His spirit hovered there in the hall. The missing hematite. would
surely be discovered, and even disregarding that stone, Avelyn's future was far
from secure.
What was he to do? And how could he tolerate any of this madness, this
insult to God?
Master Siherton came out of Markwart's room alone, his boots clicking on
the floor as he made his way in the direction of the stone room. To check on the
damage from Quintall's misstep, no doubt, the spying Avelyn realized; to check
on the lists of reorganized stones.
Tugged by a sense of urgency, Avelyn gave in to the hematite, his spirit
floating fast for Siherton's back.
The pain as he entered the man's body was excruciating, beyond anything
Avelyn had ever felt. His thoughts mingled with Siherton's; their spirits
clashed and battled, shoving and pushing for possession. Avelyn had struck the
man off guard, but even so, the straggle was nothing short of titanic. Avelyn
realized then that an attempt at possession was akin to fighting an enemy on his
home ground.
If any had been about to bear witness, they would have seen Siherton's
body lurching back and forth across the corridor, slamming into walls, clawing
at its own face.
Then Avelyn felt the weight of a corporeal form again. He knew
instinctively that Siherton's spirit was nearby, locked in some dimensional
pocket that Avelyn did not understand. And he had control of the body; it moved
to the commands of his spirit!
Avelyn went off with all speed to the stone room, entering forcefully and
snapping his glare over the two guards and Quintall before they could utter a
word of protest.
"You remain," Avelyn commanded one of the guards. "You," he said to
Quintall, "your punishment has not yet been determined."
 "Punishment?" Quintall echoed breathlessly. He had been told that there
would be no consequences from his mishap, and indeed, such minor problems had
not been uncommon in the month in which he and Avelyn had been at work with the
new stones. Just a week before, Avelyn had melted a leg of one table while
examining a ruby sprinkled with carnallite!
"Brother Avelyn was not --" Quintall began to protest.
"To your room and prayers!" the voice of Siherton commanded.
"Yes, my master," said a cowed Quintall, and he moved off out of the room.
"Be gone!" Avelyn commanded the other guard, and the man ran out of the
room, swiftly passing Quintall in the hall.
Then Avelyn and the remaining guard began selecting and collecting stones:
the giant crystal amethyst, a rod of graphite, a small but potent ruby, and
several others, including turquoise and amber, celestine and a tiger's paw, a
chrysoberyl, or cat's eye, some gypsum and malachite, a sheet of chrysotile, and
a piece of heavy magnetite. Avelyn placed them in a bag, and in it he placed, as
well, a small pouch of tiny carnallites, the one stone whose magic could be
brought forth only a single time. Avelyn then went to the other end of the room
and pocketed a valuable emerald, not an enchanted one, but one used as an
example of a particular cut, and then he, bade the guard to follow him -- and
quickly, since the use of the hematite was draining the monk and Siherton's
spirit was nearby, trying, Avelyn knew, to find some route back to its body.
They made their way to the secluded cell that held Avelyn's body, the
master's voice quickly and forcefully dismissing the two men who stood guard in
the hall.
The one remaining guard, the man from the stone room, opened the door on
Siherton's order. There stood Avelyn's corporeal form, as he had left it,
clutching the hematite. Avelyn in Siherton's body stepped past the guard and
deftly took the hematite, then instructed the guard to shoulder the inanimate
body and follow him.
"Brother Avelyn is to be punished for treason against the Order" was all
the explanation he offered, and the guard, who had heard rumors to that effect
for weeks now, did not question the news.
It was vespers, so few were about to observe the master and the guard,
bearing his extraordinary burden, as they made their way to the abbey roof
overlooking All Saints Bay. The guard, as instructed, placed the body at the
base of the low wall and stepped back.
Avelyn waited for many moments, gathering his strength. He bent over the
body, slipping the hematite and one other stone, into its hand, tying the
gemstone sack to the body's rope belt.
"The stones will allow us to find the body," he explained to the guard,
noting that the man was growing increasingly suspicious. "They will take from
Brother Avelyn the last of his physical strength as he dies."
The guard's face screwed up with curiosity, but he did not dare to
question the dangerous master.
Avelyn knew that he had to be quick -- that he had to be perfect.
With great effort, Avelyn tore his spirit free of Siherton's corporeal
form and reentered his own, coming to his physical senses even as Siherton's
body shivered with the return of his own spirit.
Avelyn was up, quick as a cat, clutching the stones in one hand and
grabbing Siherton by the front of his robe with the other. Before the guard
could come to the master's aid, Avelyn hauled the stunned Siherton and himself
over the rail.
They plummeted past the abbey walls, down the cliff face, into the gloom,
Siherton screaming his protests.
Avelyn kicked and pushed the man away, then called upon the second stone
he held, the malachite.
Then he was floating, Siherton continuing to plummet.
 Avelyn continued to push out as he descended gently past the angled cliff.
Near the bottom, he pulled the amber from his pouch. He touched down lightly on
the water, as he had done in an exercise that seemed to him a million years ago.
He was glad that Siherton's body was not in sight; he could not have borne that
spectacle.
Using the amber, he walked across the cold water to a point where he could
get ashore, then he moved off down the road.
He knew that he would never look upon St.-Mere-Abelle again.

He used the stones. With the malachite, he floated gently over cliffs that
any pursuing monks would spend hours climbing down. With the amber, he crossed
wide lakes that his pursuers would have to circumvent. Using a chrysoberyl, a
cat's-eye, he could see clearly in the dark and move along at daylight pace
without the telltale glow of a light. At the first town he entered, he happened
upon a caravan of several merchant wagons, and there he sold the common emerald,
giving him all the funds he would need for a long, long time.
He put miles and miles behind him, between him and that terrible place
called St.-Mere-Abelle. But the young monk could not pull his mind far from the
horrors he had witnessed, the encroaching evil that nibbled at the very heart of
all that young Avelyn Desbris had held dear.
He learned the truth of it one cold night as he lay curled beneath a tree,
under the stars, under the heavens. As if his thoughts were magically
transported, or his prayers for guidance divinely answered, his eyes looked
across the scores of miles to a land of great jagged mountains, to a smoking
cone in its midst, and the black devastation behind a slowly creeping line of
red lava.
Avelyn understood then -- all of it -- for it was not without precedent.
This gloom that had come to Honce-the-Bear had come before in a definite shape
and manner that was oft-told in the historical volumes at St.-Mere-Abelle. All
of it: the cancer that had grown in his world, the unpreparedness, the
ungodliness of St.-Mere-Abelle. The monks were the sentinels of God and yet even
they had given in to complacency, to the cancer. And because of that lapse, the
darkness had returned.
Half-crazed, his entire world shattered, Avelyn understood. The dactyl was
awake. The brooding demon that forever haunted the race of man had come back to
the world. He knew it to be true. In all his heart, young Avelyn Desbris
recognized the darkness that had murdered Taddy Sway and Bunkus Smealy, the evil
that had destroyed the Windrunner and left his dear Dansally cold in cold water,
the wickedness that had forced Brother Pellimar to "succumb" to his wounds.
He awoke, from his fitful sleep before the dawn.
The dactyl was awake!
The world did not understand the coming darkness.
The dactyl was awake!
The Order had failed; their weakness had facilitated this tragedy!
The dactyl was awake!
Avelyn ran off -- one direction seemed as good as any other. He had to
tell the world of the evil. He had to prepare the men and women of Honce-the-
Bear, and all of Corona. He had to warn them of the demon, warn them of the
Order! He had to somehow show them their own unpreparedness, their own weakness.
The dactyl was awake!

CHAPTER 20
The Oracle

"How many lights do you see?" The words were spoken in the elvish tongue, one
that Juraviel was using more and more with Elbryan. The young man knew all the
word's, all the common phrases, now, after five years in Andur'Blough Inninness,
and only his inflections still needed perfecting.
Juraviel held a candle, as did Elbryan; and a couple of stars had appeared
in the sky, the sun just gone behind the mountainous western horizon.
The young man spent a long moment studying Juraviel. Elbryan's lessons had
turned more toward philosophy during the fall and winter of God's Year 821 to
822, and he had learned that even the simplest questions carried, many layers of
subtle meanings. Finally, convinced that this was but a prelude to his lesson,
and nothing dramatic, the young man looked up and did a quick count of the
stars, noting four.
"Six," he announced cautiously, adding the two candles.
"They are separate, then," Juraviel stated. "Your light and mine, and
those of the stars."
Elbryan's brow furrowed. Slowly, hesitantly, as if he expected to be
rebuked, he nodded his head.
"So if you pinched the light from your candle, you would stand in
darkness," Juraviel reasoned.
"More than now," Elbryan was quick to reply. "But still I would have some
of your light."
"Then my light is not contained within the flame," Juraviel went on, "but
rather, it spreads far and wide. And what of the light of the stars?"
"If the light in the stars was contained within the stars, then we would
not see the stars!" Elbryan growled in mounting frustration. There were times,
such as this, when he hated simple elven logic. "And if the light in your candle
was contained within the candle, them I would not see it."
"Exactly," replied the elf. "You may go now."
Elbryan stamped his foot as Juraviel turned away. The elf was always doing
this to him, leaving him with questions that he could not answer. "What are you
talking about?" the young man demanded.
Juraviel looked at him calmly, but made no move to respond.
Elbryan took the cue -- it was his lesson, after all. "You are saying that
the light, since it is not contained, is a shared thing?"
Juraviel didn't blink.
Elbryan paused for a long while, backtracking the conversation;
considering the options. "One light," he said finally.
Juraviel smiled.
"That was the answer," said Elbryan, gaining confidence. "One light."
"I count a dozen stars, at least, now," replied the elf. Elbryan looked
up. It was true enough; the night was fast deepening, the stars coming out in
force.
"A dozen sources of the same light," Elbryan reasoned, "or of different
lights that all join together. Because I see them, they blend. The lights become
one."
"One and the same," agreed Juraviel.
"But must I see them for this to be true?" Elbryan asked eagerly, but his
anticipation dissipated as he saw the frown immediately come over the elf.
Elbryan paused and closed his eyes, remembering his earliest lessons, the
axioms the elves had put to him so that he might view the world in a completely
different manner. In elven philosophy, the first truth, the basis of reality was
that the entire material, physical world was no more than the collection of
perceptions by the observer. Nothing existed except in the consciousness of the
individual. It was a difficult concept for Elbryan, because he had been brought
up with the idea of community, and within that concept, such elevation of self
was considered the worst of sins: pride. The elves didn't see things that way;
Juraviel had once asserted to Elbryan that everything in the. world was no more
than a play put on for Juraviel's benefit. "My consciousness creates the world
around me," the elf had proclaimed.
 "Then I could never defeat you in battle unless you willed it so," Elbryan
had then reasoned.
"Except that your consciousness creates the world around you," the elf had
replied, and then, typically, he had walked away.
That seeming contradiction had left Elbryan in a quandary. What he came to
understand from that viewpoint was a sense of self he had never before felt free
to explore.
"The stars and my candle are one because I can see both," the young man
said conclusively. "I make the world around me."
Juraviel nodded. "You interpret the world around you," he corrected. "And
as you heighten your senses to become aware of the slightest details, your
interpretations will grow, your awareness will grow."
Juraviel then left him, sitting in a field, holding his candle and
watching the birth of so many stars, heavenly fires to join with his own. That
simple shift in perception, that all the lights were truly one, gave Elbryan a
sense of oneness with the universe that he had never truly experienced before.
Suddenly the heavens seemed closer to him, seemed within reach. Suddenly he felt
a part of that vast velvet canopy.
All through the rest of that year, and through the months of God's Year
822, Elbryan learned to view the world as an elf, to find a paradox of
individuality and community, an elevation of the self, yet a oneness with all
about him. The tiny shifts in perception brought on so many new experiences,
allowed him to see flowers where he never before would have looked, allowed him
to feel the presence of an animal -- even identify its approximate size -- by
subtle scents and vibrations in the living world about him. He felt like a great
empty sponge being dunked into the waters of knowledge, and he absorbed so much,
taking incredible pleasure in each lesson, in each word. His entire concepts of
space and time altered. Sequence became segment, memory became time travel.
Even Elbryan's sleeping habits changed, shifting to a more controlled,
meditative process than a lumped time of uncontrollable unconsciousness.
"Fanciful musing," the elves called it, or "reverie." In this semidream state,
Elbryan could tune out his sense of sight, yet keep his ears and nose keen for
external stimuli. And he replaced much of his dreaming with time travel, moved
his mind back. to another place in his life that he could replay the events
about him and view them from a different perspective, and thus, learn from them.
Olwan was alive to him on those nights, as was Jilseponie, dear Pony, and
all the others of Dundalis. Somehow the perfect recollections gave Elbryan a
sense of immortality, as if all those people really were alive, just locked away
in a different place to which his memory was the key.
He took comfort in that. He found that much of elven philosophy gave him
solace, except that he could not really change what had happened, could not
alter the past.
The pain remained, the horrible screams, the desperate fights, the mounds
of bodies. On Juraviel's instruction, Elbryan did not avoid the anguish, but
went to that terrible place often, using the harsh reality of the death of
Dundalis to strengthen his nerve, to harden him emotionally.
"Trials past prepare us for trials future," the elf often said.
Elbryan didn't argue, but he wondered, and almost feared, what future
trials could possibly match the pain of that awful day.

He stood atop the treeless hillock and he waited, his eyes glued to the
eastern horizon, to the tiny sliver of light heralding the approach of dawn.
He was naked, every hair, every nerve feeling the tickle of the chill
breeze. He was naked and he was free, and as the horizon brightened a bit more,
he lifted his sword, a large but well-balanced weapon, into the air before him,
both hands clasping its long hilt, the muscles of his arms bulging.
 Elbryan brought the sword across in a gentle sweep, his weight lifting
gradually with the movement of the outstretched blade to keep his balance
perfect. Up went the blade over his left shoulder. He stepped right foot
forward, then brought the sword back, again slowly, perfectly balanced. His left
foot came forward, then went out to the side, blade and right foot following,
turning the young man as if he were now facing a second opponent. Strike, parry,
strike, all in harmonic and slow motion, and then he dropped his right foot
back, coming around in a fluid movement to stalk back to the left. Strike,
parry, strike -- the same routine.
Then he dropped his right foot back again and half pivoted, so that he was
facing exactly opposite from where he had started. He came ahead in three strong
strides -- strike, strike, strike with the blade as he moved, then repeated the
same motions he had used, left and right, from this new position.
"Bi'nelle dasada," it was called, the sword-dance. The young man continued
for nearly an hour, his arms and weapon weaving ever more intricate patterns in
the empty air. This was the bulk of his physical training now, not sparring but
gaining a memory of the movements within his muscles. Every attack and parry
angle became ingrained in him; what had been conscious battle strategy melded
into a reactive response or an anticipatory strike.
From the trees at the base of the hillock, Juraviel and some others
watched the sword-dance in sincere admiration. Truly the muscled young human was
a thing of beauty and grace, a combination of pure strength and uncanny agility.
His sword swished with ease, as did his long and wavy, wheat-colored hair. Never
losing the slightest edge of balance, Elbryan's muscles worked in perfect
harmony, perfect fluidity, none battling, flexing and complementing each move.
And his eyes! Even from this distance, the elves could see the olive-green
orbs sparkling with intensity, truly seeing the imagined foes.
The young Elbryan's movements improved with every day, and so Juraviel
gave him more of the sword-dance, the most intricate battle movements known to
the elves, who collectively were the finest swordsmen in all the world. Elbryan
mastered the intricate movements, every one, soaked them into the sponge he had
become and held them fast in his heart, mind, and muscles. No longer did any,
even Tuntun, question his prowess or his bloodline. Never again in Andur'Blough
Inninness were the words "blood of Mather" spoken derisively where young Elbryan
was concerned. For he had passed through the "wall of nonperception," as
Juraviel called it, had shrugged off the human societal inhibitions of
consciousness, had become one with the greater powers, the natural powers, about
him.
On those occasions when he did spar, he not only understood how to defeat
any attack, deflect, dodge, or block, but also knew which tactic would offer
appropriate counterattacks or would keep his defensive posture strong against
subsequent attacks from that foe, or even from others. Elbryan now won far more
often than he lost, even held his own when battling two against one.
His routines became more varied, more deadly, resembling in many instances
the motions of an animal predator. He could put a dagger in his hand and curl
his arm in such a way that he might strike as the viper. Or he didn't even need
the dagger but could stiffen his fingers that he might drive them right through
any obstacle.
And every morning, before the mist veil blanketed Andur'Blough Inninness,
Elbryan came to this spot and watched the dawn, weaving his sword-dance,
building the memory.
The blood of Mather.

The gifts -- a heavy blanket, a small chair shaped of bent sticks, and a wood --
framed mirror -- surprised and confused Elbryan. The mirror alone was very
expensive, he knew, and the craftsmanship and incredibly light wood of the chair
allowed it to be folded and easily carried, but the only one of the three
presents that made any sense to him was the blanket, a most practical item.
Tuntun and Juraviel let the young man look the gifts over for a long
while, let him test the chair and even study his own image in the silvery
mirror.
"My deepest gratitude," Elbryan said sincerely, though his measure of
confusion was clear in his voice.
"You do not even understand the significance," Tuntun replied
distastefully. "You believe that you have been given three gifts, yet it is the
fourth that is most precious by far!"
Elbryan looked at the elf maiden, studied her blue eyes for some hint.
"The mirror, the chair, and the blanket," Juraviel said solemnly. "The
Oracle."
Elbryan had never heard the word before; again his confusion showed
clearly on his face.
"Do you think that the dead are gone?" Tuntun asked cryptically,
apparently enjoying this spectacle. "Do you think that all there is is all you
see?"
"There are other levels of consciousness," Juraviel tried to clarify,
casting a stern glance at his teasing partner.
"Dreaming," Elbryan offered hopefully.
"And the memories of fanciful musing," Juraviel added. "In Oracle, the
musing combines with the consciousness to bring the memory to the present."
Elbryan's brow furrowed as he considered the words, as their implications
began to unfold before him. "To speak with the dead?" he asked breathlessly.
"What is dead?" Tuntun laughed.
Even Juraviel couldn't suppress a chuckle at his elven companion's
unending games. "Come," he bade Elbryan. "It would be better to show than to
tell."
The three left Caer'alfar, moving purposefully into the deep woods. The
day was not bright above them, even darker than usual with the misty blanket,
and a light rain tickled the forest canopy. They walked for nearly an hour, no
one talking except Tuntun, who offered an occasional verbal jab at Elbryan.
Finally Juraviel stopped at the base of a huge oak, its trunk so wide that
Elbryan couldn't put his arms halfway around it. The two elves exchanged solemn
looks.
"He'll not do it," Tuntun promised, her melodic voice rising singsong.
"Nor could he ever defeat you in battle," Juraviel was quick to respond,
drawing an angry stamp of Tuntun's delicate foot.
Elbryan took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. So, this was
but another test, he thought. One of his will and mental prowess, no doubt,
considering the three gifts he carried. He was determined not to disappoint
Juraviel and not to let Tuntun be right about anything.
Around the back of the tree, Elbryan saw there was a narrow opening
between the roots, a tunnel that seemed to widen as it descended at a steep
angle.
"There is a pedestal of stone inside on which you must place the mirror,"
Juraviel explained, "and a place before it where you might set up your chair.
Use the blanket to cover the entry, so that it becomes very dark within."
Elbryan waited, expecting more instructions. After a long moment, Tuntun
nudged him roughly. "Are you afraid even to try?" she chided.
"Try what?" Elbryan demanded, but when he looked to Juraviel for support,
he found the elf was pointing to the narrow opening, indicating that the young
man should enter.
Elbryan had no idea what they expected, what he should do, beyond the
simple instructions Juraviel had offered. With a shrug, he took up his items and
moved to the opening. Getting in would be test enough, for the cave was far more
suited to one of elven stature. He slipped the chair in first, easing it down as
far as he could reach, then closing his eyes and letting go. From the sound of
its descent, the floor of the cave was not more than eight feet below the
opening, he figured. Next he lay the blanket along the bottom of the shaft,
using it to cover uneven jags of roots, that he wouldn't hook his clothing, get
stuck, and look completely stupid in Tuntun's always judging eyes. With a final
glance at Juraviel, hoping futilely that some further information would come his
way, Elbryan closed his eyes and started in, going headfirst and protecting the
mirror with his body. As soon as he crossed under the tree, he opened his eyes,
now more sensitive to the darkness, and scouted. A bear or a porcupine or even a
smelly skunk might have slipped in here, and it was with great relief that
Elbryan found the cave apparently empty, and not so large. It was fairly
circular, perhaps eight feet in diameter. As promised, a stone pedestal rested
near the wall just to Elbryan's side, and hooking his arm around a root in the
ceiling, he turned right side up and swung his feet to the pedestal, then
stepped down easily to the cave floor. A bit of water had accumulated in one low
spot, but nothing threatening or even inconvenient.
Elbryan quickly set the mirror on the pedestal, leaning it against the
back wall of the cave, and opened his chair; placing it before the mirror, as
instructed. Then he went about draping the blanket over the cave entrance,
darkening the room so that he could barely make out his hand if he held it in
front of his face. That done, the young man felt about, found his chair, and
slipped into it.
Then he waited, wondering. His eyes gradually adjusted so that he could
just barely make out the larger shapes in the room.
The minutes continued to pass him by; all was quiet and dark. Elbryan grew
frustrated, wondering what test this might be, wondering what purpose could be
found in sitting in the dark, facing a mirror he could hardly see. Was Tuntun
right in asserting that this trip was a waste of time?
Finally Juraviel's melodic voice broke the tension. "This is the Cave of
Souls, Elbryan Wyndon," the elf half spoke and half sang. "The Oracle, where an
elf, or a human, might speak with the spirits of those who have passed before
them. Seek your answers in the depths of the mirror."
Elbryan steadied himself with the breathing routine of bi'nelle dasada and
focused his eyes on the mirror -- or at least on the area where he knew the
mirror to be, for it was hardly discernible.
He brought out a mental picture of. the pedestal and mirror, recalled the
image from the few moments before he had draped the blanket. Gradually, the
square shape was visible, at least in his mental image, and so he sent his gaze
within the frame of that square.
And he sat, as the minutes became an hour, as the sun behind the elven
mist and the clouds made its way toward the western horizon. Boredom crept into
his concentration, along with the frustration of realizing that Tuntun might be
right. Still, no further calls came from beyond the cave, so the two elves, at
least, were apparently being patient.
Elbryan dismissed all thought of the elves, and each time one of those
distracting notions -- or any other thoughts from outside this one room -- came
back to him, he fought it off.
He lost all sense of the passing of time; soon nothing invaded his focus.
The room darkened even more as the sun moved westward, but Elbryan, his eyes
long past the gloom, didn't notice.
There was something in the mirror, just beyond his vision!
He slipped deeper into his meditative state, let go of all the conscious
images that cluttered his mind. Something was there, a reflection of a man,
perhaps.
Was it his own reflection?
That notion stole away the image, but only for a moment.
 Then Elbryan saw it more clearly: a man, older than he, with a face
creased by the sun and wind, a light beard trimmed low to follow the line of his
jaw. He looked like Elbryan, or at least as Elbryan might look in a score of
years. He looked like Olwan, and yet it was not, the young man somehow knew. It
was . . .
"Uncle Mather?"
The image nodded; Elbryan fought for a gulp of air.
"You are the ranger," Elbryan said quietly, barely finding his voice. "You
are the ranger who went before me, who was trained by these very same elves."
The image made no move to reply.
"You are the standard to which I am held," Elbryan said. "I fear that you
stand too tall!"
Something seemed to soften in the visage of the spirit, and Elbryan got
the distinct feeling that, in Mather's eyes at least, his fear was misplaced.
"They speak of responsibility," the young man went on, "of duty, and the
road that lies before me. Yet I fear I am not all that Belli'mar Juraviel
believes me to be. I wonder why I was chosen in this -- why was Elbryan saved
that day in Dundalis? Why not Olwan, my father, your brother, so solid and
strong, so knowing in the ways of battle and the world?"
Elbryan tried to pause and collect his thoughts, but he found the words
kept coming out as if compelled by the spirit, by this place, and by his own
state of mind. Even if this was his uncle Mather, he realized he was speaking to
the spirit of a man he had never known! But that fear couldn't hold against the
river of his own soul, pouring forth in great release.
"What height must I attain to satisfy the judgment of Tuntun and the many
other elves of like mind? I fear that they ask of me the strength of a fomorian
giant, the speed of a frightened deer, the wariness of a ground squirrel, and
the calm and wisdom of a centuries-old elf. What man could measure such?
"Ah, but you did, Uncle Mather. By all that they say of you, even by the
look in Tuntun's eyes -- one of sincere admiration -- I know that you were no
disappointment to the fairy folk of Caer'alfar. How will they judge me twenty
years hence, a mere day by an elf's measure?. And what of this world I will soon
know?"
Terrifying images, mostly of other humans, flitted across Elbryan's
vision, as if they were flying across the face of the mirror.
"I am afraid, Uncle Mather," he admitted. "I do not know what it is that I
fear, whether it is the judgment of the elves, the dangers of the wilderness, or
the company of other people! More than a quarter of my life has passed since I
have seen another who stands as a human, who sees the world as a human.
"But then," he continued, his voice dropping low, "I fear most that I no
longer see the world as a human, nor can I truly view it as an elf might, but as
something in between. I love Caer'alfar, and all of this valley, but here I do
not belong. This I know in my heart, and I fear that out there, among my own
kind, I will not be among my own kind.
"Kin and kind," Elbryan decided, "do not always go together. What is left
of me, then? What creature am I that is neither elf nor human?"
Still the image did not answer, did not move at all. But Elbryan felt that
soft feeling -- that sympathy, that empathy -- and he knew then that he was not
alone. He knew then his answer.
"I am Elbryan the Ranger," he asserted, and all the implications of that
title seemed to fall over him, their weight not bowing but bolstering his broad
shoulders.
Elbryan realized that he was bathed in a cold sweat. Only then did he
notice the room had darkened almost to the point of absolute blackness. "Uncle
Mather?" he called in the direction of the mirror, but the image of the specter
and even of the mirror itself was no more.
 Juraviel was waiting for the young man when he crawled out of the hole.
The elf looked as if he meant to ask some question, but he stared instead at
Elbryan's face and apparently found his answer. They said nothing all the way
back to Caer'alfar.

CHAPTER 21
Ever Vigilant, Ever Watchful

Jill looked out past the towering rocks to the dark waters of the wide Mirianic,
great swells rolling lazily, then breaking fast against the rocks two hundred
feet below her. The rhythm continued, through the minutes, through the hours,
through the days, the weeks, the years. Through all eternity, Jill supposed. If
she were to return to this place in a thousand years, the waves would
remain, rolling gently and then crashing against the base of this same rocky
rise.
The young woman looked back over her shoulder at the small fortress that
she called home, Pireth Tulme. In a thousand years, the scene would be the same,
she decided, except that this structure, with its single low tower, would not
remain, would be taken by time, by the wind and the storms that swept into
Horseshoe Bay with disturbing regularity.
She had only been here for four months and she had witnessed a dozen such
storms, including three in one week, that had left her and her forty companions,
all members of the elite corps known as the Coastpoint Guards, soggy and sullen.
Yes, those were the words, Jill decided. "Soggy and sullen," she said
aloud, and nodded, thinking that a fitting description of all her life.
She had been given her chance, the one opportunity that most people,
particularly women in the patriarchal kingdom of Honce-the-Bear, never had. Jill
closed her eyes and let the ocean sounds
take her. back to another shore, a gentler shore on the banks of the Masur
Delaval, to the city of Palmaris, the only home she remembered. How fared
Graevis and Pettibwa? she wondered. And
what of Grady? Had her disaster with Connor Bildeborough destroyed the man's
attempts at entry into the high society?
Jill laughed and hoped that it had. That would be the one good thing to
come of the tragedy. Nearly two years had passed since her "wedding night," but
the pain remained vivid indeed.
She looked around again, then up at the sky and noticed that many of the
stars had disappeared. A moment later, a light rain began to fall. "Soggy," she
said again, shaking her head. No matter how many times she witnessed it, Jill
could hardly believe how quickly the rain came on in Pireth Tulme.
Like the rain that came into her life, first in that frontier village,
when the goblins came, then in Palmaris. She could hardly remember that first
incident, but she knew that her life had gradually grown wonderful. And then, in
the snap of fingers, in the space of a single kiss, it was all gone, all taken
away.
How much more could she have hoped for above the wedding in Palmaris? She
had been married in St. Precious, considered by many to be the most beautiful
chapel in all of Corona. And Dobrinion Calislas, Abbot of St. Precious and thus
the third ranking priest in the entire Abellican Church, had performed the
ceremony himself! What young woman would not swoon at the mere thought of such a
day? And then the night, spent in the mansion of Baron Bildeborough!
A shiver traced Jill's spine as she remembered the grand room, the change
that had come over Connor, and then the look on his face, first feral and then,
with the side of his nose and one cheek burned and blistering, even worse. His
expression had softened only a bit the next morning when he and Jill had gone
again before Abbot Dobrinion. Of course, since it had not been consummated, the
marriage had been annulled immediately.
A snap of old Dobrinion's fingers.
There was still the matter of Jill's crime, though. Her assault on a
nobleman, one that might well have left the handsome young man permanently
scarred, was no minor matter in Palmaris. By right, Connor could have demanded
her execution. Short of that, there was the very real possibility that Abbot
Dobrinion would bind Jill into indenture to Connor, perhaps for the remainder of
her life.
But Connor had been merciful, and ever was Abbot Dobrinion long on
forgiveness. "I have heard of the incident with three rogues on the back roof of
Fellowship Way," the old priest had explained, a warm smile coming to his face.
"One with your skills should not be wasted serving at tables: There is a place
for a woman of your talent and ferocity, a place where such wild anger is
assuaged, even applauded." Thus the old abbot had bound her over into the
service of the King of Honce-the-Bear, as a foot soldier in the Kingsmen, the
army. That moment remained very
clear to Jill: Dobrinion's words spoken sympathetically, while she looked back
over her shoulder at Pettibwa and Graevis. There was no anger showing on the
faces of her adopted parents, no hint
that Jill and her irrational actions of the previous night had cost them, too,
so much just a most profound sadness. Pettibwa had neatly burst apart at Abbot
Dobrinion's decree, at the notion that
her Jilly would be taken from her. There was little joy that night at the Way;
where Jill said her good-byes.
Soon after, with Palmaris behind her, Jill had come to see the wisdom of
the abbot's decision. Indeed she had thrived; initially, at least, in the
military. She started as a common foot soldier, "fodder walkers" they were
called, but soon enough worked her way into the more elite cavalry group. There
were no real enemies to battle: Honce-the-Bear had been at peace for longer than
anyone could remember. But in the weekly sparring contests, Jill released enough
enemies from her memories to carry her through with a ferocity that had
astonished her superiors. One by one, her sparring partners had been dispatched,
usually painfully, until clot a man or woman in the unit desired to go against
her. Her notoriety had made her more than a few real enemies, though, and so she
had been moved about, from one fortress to another, serving a variety of
functions, from castle guard to cavalry patrol.
All in all, it had been a boring year; castle guards were no more than
showpieces, and the worst incident Jill had seen in four months with the cavalry
patrol was a fight between two peasant brothers, when one' had bitten the
other's ear off. And so it was with great expectations and hopes that Jill had
received the news of her appointment into the second most elite unit, behind
only the Allheart Brigade, in all of Honce-the-Bear: the famed Coastpoint
Guards. These were the legendary fighters who had in ages past turned away a
powrie invasion, the fearsome warriors who had tamed the region known as the
Broken Coast, thus widening the domain of Honce-the-Bear's King.
She didn't get what she expected when she arrived at the small fortress of
Pireth Tulme, overlooking Horseshoe Bay and the wide Mirianic. Pireth Tulme was
but one in a series of keeps dotting Honce-the-Bear's coastline. Like all of its
sister fortresses, Pireth Tulme was secluded, far from any large settlements,
but strategically located to watch the waters for invasion. Pireth Tulme guarded
the southern passes of the Gulf of Corona, while Pireth Dancard held post on the
five small islands centering the gulf, and Pireth Vanguard watched the northern
way.
To Jill, their mission seemed paramount, a stoic existence protecting the
welfare of all the kingdom. It didn't take her long to realize that she was
alone in her convictions.
 Pireth Tulme, and apparently all the other Coastpoint fortresses, were far
from the stoic bastions of their reputation. The partying had hardly slowed in
all the four months Jill had been there. Even now, later into the night as she
walked her watch along the low walls, she could hear the revelry -- the clink of
glasses lifted high in one toast after another, the bawdy laughter, the squeals
of women pursued or pursuing.
The guards were forty in number, with only seven of them female. Jill,
whose only experience with a man had been so very disastrous, did not like the
odds. She shook her head distastefully as she walked her watch this night, as
she did every night.
A short while later one haggard-looking soldier -- a man of forty years by
the name of Gofflaw, who had spent more than half his wretched life in the
Kingsmen, including a dozen years in the Coastpoint Guards shuffling from one
lonely outpost to another came staggering out to the wall, making his way toward
Jill.
She gave a sigh, resigned to the reality about her. She wasn't
particularly afraid; she didn't think the drunken slob would even get to her
before he fell off the narrow walkway, dropping the eight feet to the fortress's
small courtyard. Somehow, bouncing against the blocks of the outer wall with
each step, he got near the woman.
"Ah, me Jilly," Gofflaw slurred. "Walkin' again in the rain."
Jill shook her head and looked away.
"Why don't ye go inside and warm yer bones then, girl?" the man asked.
"Quite a row this night. Go on with ye. I'll take yer watch."
Jill knew better. If she accepted his outwardly gracious offer and went
inside, Gofflaw would soon follow, leaving the walls empty. Even worse, for him
to be out here fetching her, there was likely a conspiracy inside. The long, low
main house of Pireth Tulme was not large, only three medium-sized common rooms,
each surrounded by a dozen anterooms, each barely large enough for the pair of
cots and two footlockers it held. Most of the structure was underground, the
main house being three identical levels but appearing as only one story from the
courtyard. If Jill ventured into that tight place, if this man was out here to
lure her in, she would likely find, herself in grabby quarters indeed.
"I will keep my own watch, thank you," she replied politely and started
away.
"And just what're ye watching for?" the soldier demanded, his tone
suddenly sharp.
Jill spun on him, her blue eyes narrow and glaring. She knew the routine
and even agreed that it seemed very unlikely that any enemies, or anyone at all,
would approach the fortress or sail past it on their way into the Gulf of
Corona. But that wasn't the point, not in Jill's estimation. If one invasion
came every five hundred years the Coastpoint Guards, the elite of the elite,
must be prepared for it!
"You go to your party," she said evenly, her jaw clenched. "I choose to
walk to honor the uniform I wear."
Gofflaw snorted and wiped a greasy hand down the front of his own red
jacket. "The better of it, yell learn," he said. "Just ye wait until the days
become a year, and then two and three and four and --"
"I believe that she understands your reasoning, Gofflaw," came a solid,
unwavering voice. Jill looked past the drunk, who turned as well, to see Warder
Constantine Presso, the commander of Pireth Tulme, approaching along the wall.
By all appearances, the man was impressive -- tall and straight, mustache and
goatee neatly trimmed, his red-trimmed blue overcoat tailored straight and
proper, black leather baldric crossing right shoulder to left hip and sporting
an impressive sword, a family heirloom. He was in his late twenties and had
earned his position by defeating three bandits who had slipped into the house of
a nobleman one evening. When she had first arrived at Pireth Tulme and had met
the warder, Jill's hopes had soared with a sense of greater responsibility.
She had soon learned, though, that the ready appearance of the fortress,
on that day when the Kingsmen's regional commander had taken her out to the
isolated outpost, had been no more than a temporary show, and that Warder
Presso, for all of his regal appearance, had long ago fallen into the same trap
as the rest of her companions.
Presso eyed Jill directly -- he was often doing that. "And I believe that
she declines," the warder said.
"I do," Jill agreed.
Gofflaw muttered something under his breath and started past Presso, but
the man stuck out his arm, blocking the way.
"But it grows late," Presso said to Jill, "or should I say early? Your
watch surely is ended."
"I take the night."
"What part of the night?"
"The night," Jill snapped. "No one else will come up here. They view the
setting of the sun as the end of their duties, what little duties they do bother
to perform during the day."
"Calm, lass," Presso said, patting his hand in the air. Perhaps he was
trying to be the levelheaded commander, but to Jill, it came off as
condescending.
"I am well read in our rules of conduct and operation," Jill continued.
"Our watch does not end with the setting sun. `Ever vigilant, ever watchful,' "
she finished, the motto of the once proud Coastpoint Guards.
"And for what are you watching?" Presso asked calmly.
Jill's face screwed up incredulously.
"Would you see a powrie ship, or even a raft full of goblins, if it glided
past us into the gulf, barely a hundred yards from our shore?"
"I would hear them," Jill insisted.
Presso's snort fast became a full-blown chuckle. "Dawn is not so far
away," he said. "Pray you go inside now and get the rain out of your bones."
Jill started to protest, but the warder cut her short. He set Gofflaw up
as sentry, then took Jill by the arm and pulled her in front of him, pushing her
gently toward the tower door.
They went in together, and in truth; Jill was glad to be out of the rain.
At the bottom of the tower stairs, through the small hallway that led into the
main house, the pair passed a partly opened door. From the sounds emanating from
within, it was quite obvious what was going on in there.
Jill hurried down the hallway and entered the common room of the upper
level. A dozen men were in there, along with two women, all nearly falling-down
drunk. One man was up on the tables, dancing, or trying to; and removing his
clothing to the jeers of his male friends and the hoots of the women.
Jill looked straight ahead as she made for the door to the stairwell that
would get her down to her room. Warder Presso caught her just as she reached
that door, grabbing her by the shoulder.
"Stay with us and enjoy the rest of the night," he said.
"Are you commanding me to do so?"
"Of course not," replied Presso, who was really a decent sort. "I am
merely asking you to stay. Your watch is ended."
"Ever watchful," Jill replied through gritted teeth.
Presso, gave a great sigh. "How many months of boredom can you tolerate?"
he asked. "We are out here alone, all alone, with nothing but time ahead of us.
This is our life, and each of us must choose whether it will be pleasant or
wretched."
 "Perhaps we have different views of what is pleasant," Jill said,
subconsciously glancing back across the room to the hallway and the partly open
door.
"I give you that," Presso replied.
"May I go?"
"I could not order you to stay, though I truly wish that you would so
choose."
Jill's shoulders sagged. Presso's conciliation somehow seemed to take the
strength from her more than any order he might have issued. "I was put in
service to the Kingsmen by a magistrate, the abbot of Palmaris," she explained.
Presso nodded; he had heard as much.
"I did not choose to enter, but once in the ranks, I came to believe," she
said. "I do not know what it was -- a sense of purpose, a reason for
continuing."
"Continuing?"
"To live," she answered sharply. "My duty is my litany -- against what, I
do not know. But this --" She held her hand out to the revelry, to the half-
naked dancer who, as if on cue, tumbled from the table. "This is no part of my
duty nor my desire."
Presso touched her arm gently, but still she recoiled as if she had been
slapped. The warder immediately raised both his hands unthreateningly.
Jill understood his concern to be both defensive and compassionate. On the
very first night after her arrival, one of the men had tried to get too familiar
with the fiery woman. He had limped for a week, one foot swollen, one ankle and
both his knees bruised, one eye closed and a lip too fat for him to drink
anything without it dribbling down the front of his shirt. Even without the very
prominent evidence that she could defend herself, Jill believed that Presso
would not try anything. Despite his acceptance of the behavior within Pireth
Tulme, Jill recognized that he was a man of some honor. He had his way with the
other women, probably all six of them, but he would not infringe where he was
not invited.
"I fear that Gofflaw's reasoning was sound," the warder warned. "The
months will wear on you, day after boring, lonely day."
"Indeed," remarked Jill, gesturing with her chin across the way. Presso
turned to see Gofflaw entering the room. The warder sighed audibly, then turned
back to Jill and merely shrugged. He really didn't care that the walls were
unmanned.
Jill swung about and left the room, but as soon as the door was closed
behind her, she veered down a side corridor and back out into the rain. She
moved to a ladder and climbed to the seacoast wall, then sat on its outer edge,
dangling her legs over the long drop.
There she stayed for the, rest of the night, watching the stars return as
the storm cloud raced away into the gulf. As the day brightened, the pillar-like
rocks in the wide bay came clearer, standing tall and straight like sentinels,
ever vigilant, ever watchful.

CHAPTER 22
The Nightbird

"'The snows will be soon in coming this year," Lady Dasslerond remarked, staring
out of her high tree house at the gray clouds that loomed on the horizon just
north of the enchanted valley.
"A difficult winter would be consistent," Tuntun replied, her expression
even more grave than usual.
Lady Dasslerond turned back to the pair and considered the words. The raid
on Dundalis, the sightings of goblins and even giants, the evidence of many,
earthquakes to the north of Andur'Blough Inninness -- all pointed to the
resurgence of the dactyl. There were even reports of a smoke cloud rising lazily
over the Barbacan, streaming from a solitary mountain known as Aida.
It made sense; the dactyl could -- and indeed, likely would awaken a long
-- dormant volcano, using the magma to strengthen its underworld magic.
"How long is he?" Lady Dasslerond asked as her gaze returned to the west
and north.
"He has just passed his sixth year with us," Juraviel answered without
hesitation. "He was rescued from the goblins in the harvest season of the year
the humans call 816. Their reckoning shows the turn of 823 approaching."
Lady Dasslerond turned to Juraviel, her expression showing that his answer
was not acceptable. "But how long is he?" she asked again.
Juraviel sighed and rested back against the wide trunk of the maple.
Measuring such things was never easy for the elf, especially since he feared he
viewed Elbryan with favorable eyes.
"He is ready," Tuntun unexpectedly put in. "The blood of Mather runs thick
in his veins. In a half century, we will be telling our next would-be ranger
that he is of the blood of Elbryan."
Juraviel couldn't suppress a small laugh, even given the gravity of this
meeting. To hear Tuntun speaking so well of Elbryan seemed to him the ultimate
irony. "Tuntun speaks the truth," he confirmed as soon as the shock wore off.
"Elbryan has trained hard and well. He fights with grace and power, runs silent
and wary, and has visited the Oracle many times, almost always with success."
"He found a kindred spirit?" asked Lady Dasslerond.
"Only that of Mather," Juraviel replied, beaming as the smile widened
across his lady's fair face.
"But he is not yet ready," Juraviel added quickly. "There is more for him
to learn of himself and of the woodland arts. He has a year remaining, and then,
he will indeed walk as a ranger."
Lady Dasslerond was shaking her head before the elf even finished his
proclamation. "The winter will be difficult," she said firmly. "And the humans
have settled several communities along the edge of the Wilderlands, have even
resettled that place which was, and is again, known as Dundalis. If what we fear
is true, then Elbryan will be needed, before the next season of harvest."
"Even if our fears of the dactyl prove false," Tuntun added, "many of the
humans are unprepared for the Wilderlands. The presence of a ranger would do
them well."
"The turn of spring?" Juraviel asked.
"You will have the boy prepared for his walk," Lady Dasslerond agreed.
"And what of Joycenevial?" Juraviel asked.
"The bowyer is ready for him," Lady Dasslerond replied. "And the darkfern
is tall this season."
Juraviel nodded. He knew that Joycenevial, the finest bowyer in all of
Caer'alfar, in all of the world, had been cultivating a special darkfern all
these six years since Elbryan had been brought to Andur'Blough Inninness. This
would be Joycenevial's first human task since Mather, and, since the bowyer was
aged even by elven standards, most likely his last.
This one would-be special.
Elbryan thought that he knew every trail and grove in the enchanted
valley, and so he was indeed confused on that day when Juraviel led him down, a
particularly twisting path, often branching and crisscrossing a stream more than
a dozen times. Their destination must be important indeed, Elbryan realized, for
this trail was even more difficult to follow than the winding ways that hid
Caer'alfar itself!
Finally, after hours of backtracking, the pair came to a short descent
down a steep, sandy bank. At the bottom of the ravine, past a blocking wall of
low evergreen bushes, they came to a bed of ferns, bluish green in color. Most
were about waist high to Elbryan, shoulder high to Juraviel. Elbryan understood
immediately that this was their destination, that there was something unusual
about these plants; they were growing in neat rows, evenly spaced, and the
ground around them was bare. He wouldn't have expected much undergrowth, for the
ferns cast shade, but this area was too clean, as if caring hands regularly
weeded it.
"These are the darkfern," Juraviel said, his tone full of reverence. He
led Elbryan to the nearest plant and bent low, bidding the young man to inspect
the fern's stem.
The plant was thick and smooth, and the stem didn't seem to narrow at all
as it came up high and spread, three-pronged, to the leafy fronds. Elbryan
peered closer, and his green eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed again
quickly as he moved even closer to inspect the stem.
Silvery lines wove gracefully about the dark green stem; they seemed to
Elbryan consistent with the fishing lines and the bowstrings the elves used.
"The darkfern is one with the metal," Juraviel explained as soon as he
realized that Elbryan had found the key. "This ravine was chosen for the
planting because we learned that it is rich in minerals, particularly silverel,
which the plant prefers above all."
"The plant brings the metal lines up with it?" Elbryan asked. Many
implications came to him then, as if the fog veiling one of the mysteries of
elven life had suddenly lifted. The elves used many metal implements -- shields
and swords mostly -- and Elbryan had sometimes wondered where they got the
material, since, to his knowledge, there were no working mines in Andur'Blough
Inninness. He had assumed that they traded for the metal, but then he had come
to realize that elven metal was unlike anything he had seen outside the
enchanted valley. He remembered his father's sword, bulky and dark, but that
hardly compared to the fine elvish blades, shining bright and holding so keen an
edge.
"They are as one," Juraviel confirmed. "The darkfern is the lone source of
silverel."
Elbryan stared hard at the lines of gleaming metal. He felt as if he had
seen this same pattern before, though where that might have been, he could not
remember.
"Treated and cured properly, the stems are incredibly strong and
resilient," Juraviel explained; "and pliable."
"Even after you take the metal from them?"
"We do not always take the silverel from the harvested stem," the elf
replied.
Elbryan thought on that for a moment, particularly on Juraviel's last
claim that the plants were pliable. Then it came to him where he had seen this
same design. "Elvish bows," he breathed as the fog flew from yet another
mystery. Now he knew how the elvish bows, so small and frail, could launch an
arrow a hundred yards on a straight line.
He looked up from the plant to see Juraviel nodding.
"There is no composite, not bone and wood, even when blended with sinew,
that is stronger," the elf said. He motioned to the man. "Come with me," he
bade.
They walked carefully past the cultivated rows to the tallest fern of --
all, one whose broad fronds were above Elbryan's head. Unexpectedly, Juraviel
handed Elbryan his sword, then motioned the young man back a few paces.
Elbryan watched, mesmerized, as the elf closed his eyes and began to chant
in the elvish tongue, using many words so arcane that Elbryan didn't recognize
them. The song came louder, faster, and Juraviel began to dance delicate,
spinning circles wrapped in a larger circle that encompassed the plants. Elbryan
concentrated, looking for the root sounds that made up the elf's song, but still
he could not decipher many of the ancient words. He did understand that Juraviel
was praising the plant and thanking it for the gift it would soon give. This did
not surprise Elbryan; the elves always showed respect for other living
creatures, always prayed and danced over the bodies of animals they had hunted,
and sang countless songs to the fruits and berries of Andur'Blough Inninness.
The twirling elf tossed several puffs of powder upon the plant, then bent
low and with some reddish gel painted a stripe around the base of the stem just
an inch or two from the ground. He finished with a leaping flourish and landed
pointing to the stripe. "One clean strike!" he commanded.
Elbryan rolled to one knee quickly and brought the sword flashing across,
severing the plant at exactly the stripe. The darkfern landed upright and held
for a moment, then slowly tumbled to the side into Juraviel's waiting hands.
"Follow quickly," the elf bade, and ran off.
Elbryan had to work hard to keep up. Juraviel ran all the way back to
Caer'alfar, to the side of the glen, to a tall tree that housed only a single
elf.
"Joycenevial is as old as the oldest tree in Andur'Blough Inninness,"
Juraviel explained as the aged elf came out of his home and slowly descended.
Without saying a word, he dropped between the pair, took the cut fern from
Juraviel, and held it up near Elbryan. He turned it over and nodded, apparently
pleased by the fine and clean cut, then started back up his tree, fern in hand.
"No markings?" Juraviel asked.
Joycenevial only shook his head, not even bothering to look back at the
pair.
Juraviel praised him once, then started away, Elbryan in tow. The young
man had a million questions stirring around in his head. "The red gel?" he dared
to ask, trying to start a conversation, trying to unravel this most
extraordinary day.
"Without it, you would never have cut through the darkfern," Juraviel
replied.
Elbryan noted the curtness of the answer, the elf's crisp, almost sharp
tone, and he understood that further questioning would be unwelcome, that he
would learn what he must when the elves decided to tell him.
Juraviel sent Elbryan off to his duties then, but interrupted the young
man again that afternoon, two bows, including one that was fairly large by
elvish standards, in hand.
"We haven't much time," Juraviel explained, handing the large bow to his
student.
Elbryan took it and, ignoring the multitude of questions that again
swirled in his thoughts, silently followed. He studied the bow as he walked, and
concluded at once that this was not formed of the darkfern such as he had cut,
but from a smaller plant.
The old elf took up a curious-looking knife, bent upward on both sides and
with its cutting edge on one side of a slit running down its middle. He grasped
it firmly in his left hand and cradled the fern stem -- now stripped of its
fronds -- in his right. He tucked the long shaft of the plant under his right
shoulder, then gently, very gently, scraped the blade along the stem.
A tiny strip peeled away, so thin as to be nearly translucent. Joycenevial
nodded solemnly; he had treated the fern stem perfectly for the carving.
The old elf closed his eyes and began a chant. He pictured Elbryan at the
moment when the young human held the stem, envisioned the size of his hand, the
length of his arms. Other bowyers would have marked the stem appropriately, but
Joycenevial was far beyond such crude necessities. His was an act of the purest
creation and not a mere crafting; his art was bound by magic and by the sheer
skill that seven hundred years had honed. And so it was with eyes closed that
the old elf went to work on the stem, singing softly, using the music of his
voice to pace his cuts in depth and intensity. He would spend the better part of
half a year on this one, he knew, scraping and treating, notching and weaving
spells of strength. Twice a week during the carving, he would coat the stem with
special oils to add to its resilience. And when at last the bow had taken shape,
he would hang it over an ever-smoking pit, a secret, enchanted place where the
magic was strong indeed, so strong that it continually filtered up from the
ground.
Half a year -- not so long a time as measured by the elves of Caer'alfar,
a mere moment in the long history of Belli'mar Joycenevial, father of Juraviel.
He closed his eyes and considered the final ceremony, for the bow and the boy:
the naming. He had no idea what title he would give the bow; that would come to
him as the weapon took on its own personality, its own nuances.
The name would have to be correct, for this bow would be the epitome of
his crafting, Joycenevial determined, the highest achievement in a career so
often marked by perfection. Every elf in the valley carried a bow crafted by
Joycenevial, as did every ranger that had gone out from Andur'Blough Inninness
in the last half millennium. Not one of them would hold their weapon up against
this bow, however, for Belli'mar Joycenevial, as old as the oldest tree in
Andur'Blough Inninness, knew that it would be his last.
This one was special.
* * *
At least this time he had hit the tree that held the target! Elbryan
looked at Juraviel hopefully, but the elf just stood, shaking his head. In one
swift movement, Juraviel put up his bow and let fly an arrow, then another, then
a third in rapid succession.
It had come so fluidly, so fast, that Elbryan was still staring at the elf
when he heard the third arrow hit. He was almost afraid to look up at the mark
and wasn't surprised to find all three embedded squarely in the target, one in
the bull'seye, the other two right beside it.
"I will never shoot as well as you," Elbryan lamented, in as close to a
whine as Juraviel had heard from the young man in years. "Or as well as any elf
in the valley."
"True enough," retorted the elf, and he smiled as Elbryan's green eyes
widened. That apparently was not the response the young man wanted to hear.
With a growl, proud Elbryan put up his bow and let fly, missing everything
this time.
"You are aiming at the target," Juraviel remarked.
Elbryan looked at him curiously; of course he was aiming at the target!
"At the whole target," the elf explained. "Yet the tip of your arrow is
not nearly large enough to cover the whole."
Elbryan relaxed and tried to decipher the words. He considered them in
relationship to the entire elven philosophy of life, the oneness. Suddenly it
seemed possible to him that his arrow and the target were one and that his bow
was merely a tool he used that he might join the arrow and target.
"Aim at a specific, very precise point on the target," Juraviel explained.
"You must tighten your focus."
Elbryan understood. He had to find the exact spot where the arrow
belonged, the specific point where the two, target and arrow, were to be joined.
He lifted the bow -- which was too small for him -- again, drew back to the
length of the bend, though his long arms would have allowed him to pull much
farther, and let fly.
He missed, but the arrow notched into the tree barely two inches above the
target by far the closest the young man had come.
"Well done," Juraviel congratulated. "Now you understand." And the elf
began to walk away.
"Where are you going?" Elbryan called to him. "We have only been out for
minutes. My quiver holds ten arrows yet."
 "Your lesson for this day is completed," Juraviel replied. "Contemplate it
and spend as long as you desire perfecting it." The elf walked off, disappearing
into the thick brush of the forest.
Elbryan nodded grimly, determined that by the time Juraviel brought him
out here the next day, he would be able to hit that target with ease. He would
stay out here all the rest of the day, and would return as soon as his duties
with the milk-stones were completed the next morning, so he thought.
Every time his concentration wavered even a bit, his arrow flew wide of
the mark, disappearing into the forest scrub. Elbryan had come out to this place
with a full quiver, a score of arrows, but within half an hour, his quiver was
empty and not a one could be found. Just as well, the young man thought, for the
fingers of his right hand ached, as did the muscle in the middle of his chest,
and the inside of his left forearm was badly chafed.
The next day, Juraviel gave Elbryan a black leather guard to put on that
left arm and a new bow, this one not of darkfern but the largest the elf could
find in all the valley -- though it was also too small for the towering man.
Juraviel also brought with him a light green triangular huntsmen's cap, which
Elbryan accepted with a confused shrug. This time they went out with two full
quivers, and Elbryan, improving minute by minute, spent nearly three hours at
the range. At the end of the day, Juraviel revealed a new tool for him, the very
cap he wore upon his head. The elf showed him how to bring the front tip of the
triangular hat low above his eyes and to use that point as a reference in lining
up his shots.
The very next day, Elbryan hit the target two out of every three shots.
All through the fall and winter, Juraviel trained Elbryan with the bow.
The young man learned the practical aspects of the weapon, learned how to
fashion arrows, heavy for greater damage and light for longer flight, and how to
replace bowstrings -- though the elven silverel string rarely broke. Most
important of all, Elbryan came to know that archery was more a test of the mind
than the body, a concentration and focus. All of the physical aspects -- the
draw, the aiming, the loosing of the arrow -- soon became automatic repetition,
but each individual shot remained a mental measure of distance and wind, of the
length of the draw and the weight of the arrow. The fingers of the young man's
right hand were soon laced with calluses, and the leather on the inside of his
black arm guard had been worn down to half its original thickness. For Elbryan
went at this training with all the hunger he had shown in his other endeavors,
with a pride and determination that had many of the often scatterbrained elves
shrugging their shoulders in disbelief. Every day, whatever the weather, Elbryan
was at the target, working, training, drawing shot after shot, and inevitably
sinking his arrows into the target, near if not in the bull's-eye. He learned to
shoot fast -- and from different angles: to roll on the ground and come around
with an arrow flying; to hang upside down from the branch of a tree, arcing his
shot skyward so it held the appropriate range; to let fly two arrows at once and
put them near each other, usually both on the target.
Every morning he performed bi'nelle dasada and then his physical
conditioning with the milk-stones. He spent his lunches talking philosophy with
Juraviel, then went with the elf to the archery range for more practice.
His evenings, to his surprise, were most often spent with Tuntun, for the
female had been the primary instructor, and friend, of Mather, a man about whom
Elbryan desperately wanted to learn more. Tuntun recounted many stories of
Mather, from his training days in Andur'Blough Inninness -- he had made so many
of the same mistakes as Elbryan! -- to his exploits in the Wilderlands. How many
thousands of goblins and giants had fallen to Mother's deadly blade! That sword,
too; became a topic of many discussions, for Tempest, as the blade was named,
was one of but six ranger swords ever crafted, the most powerful swords to ever
go out from Andur'Blough Inninness. Of the six, only one was still accounted
for, a huge broadsword named Icebreaker, wielded by a rarely seen ranger,
Andacanavar, in the far northland of Alpinador.
"You are of a rare breed indeed," Tuntun remarked one starry evening. "It
might be that you are the only ranger alive, though we have not felt the sorrow
of Andacanavar's demise."
The reverence with which she spoke touched Elbryan and at the same time
laid a great weight upon his strong shoulders. He had come to feel special, in
many ways superior. Because of the elves, he had been given a rare and precious
gift: another language -- physical and verbal -- another way of looking at the
world about him, another way of perceiving the movements of his own body. He had
come so far from that frightened waif stumbling out of burned Dundalis. He was
the blood of Mather, Elbryan the Ranger.
Why, then, was he so terrified?
To find his answer, Elbryan often visited the Oracle. Each time, it became
easier for him to conjure the spirit of Mather, and though the specter never
offered any words in response, Elbryan's own soliloquies allowed the young man
to keep things fairly sorted out, to keep his perspective and his nerve.
The winter, a difficult one even in the enchanted valley -- as Lady
Dasslerond had predicted -- passed slowly, the snows coming early and deep and
holding on stubbornly as the season shifted to spring.
For Elbryan, life went along at its usual frantic pace, learning and
growing. He was truly an archer now, not as proficient as some of the elves, but
certainly an expert by the measure of humans. His understanding of the natural
world about him would never be complete -- there was simply too much for any
individual to know -- but it continued to deepen with each passing day and each
new experience. The entire way in which Elbryan now viewed the world around him
was conducive to such learning; truly he was the sponge and all the world a
liquid.
The shift came dramatically, unexpectedly, when Elbryan was roused from
his bed one blustery Toumanay night by Juraviel and Tuntun. The elves prodded
and pushed him, finally getting him out of his low tree house wearing only a
cloak and a loincloth. They escorted him to a wide tree-lined field, where all
two hundred elves of Caer'alfar had gathered.
Juraviel pulled away Elbryan's cloak, while Tuntun pushed him, shivering,
to the middle of the field.
"Remove it," she said sternly, indicating the loincloth.
Modesty caused Elbryan to hesitate, but Tuntun wasn't in the mood for a
debate. With a flick of her daggers, one in each hand, she cut away the meager
covering, caught it before it dropped two inches, then skittered away, leaving
the confused, naked man standing alone, with all the eyes of Andur'Blough
Inninness upon him.
Holding hands, the elves formed a wide circle about him. Then they began
to dance, the circle rotating to the left. They broke their line often,
individual elves leaping into pirouettes or simply following steps of their own
choosing, but in general the rotation continued about Elbryan.
The elven song filled his ears and all his body, gradually taking him from
his place of modesty, relaxing him, intoxicating him. All the forest seemed to
join in -- the gusty breezes, the birdsong, the croaking of frogs.
Elbryan tilted back his head, considering the stars, the few rushing
clouds. He found he was turning as the circle turned, as if compelled, as if the
elven movement had summoned a whirlpool about him, spinning him with its
currents. All seemed a dream, vague and somehow removed.
"What do you hear?" came a question near him. "At this, your moment of
birth, what do you see?"
Elbryan didn't even consider the source -- Lady Dasslerond standing right
before him. "I hear the birds," he answered absently. "The night birds."
 All the world around him went silent, the dream state shattered by the
sudden change. Elbryan blinked a few times as he came to a halt, though, to his
dizzy perspective, the stars above him continued on their merry rotating way.
"Tai'marawee!" Lady Dasslerond cried out, and Elbryan, hardly conscious
that she was out in the middle of the field with him; jumped at the sound of her
voice. He looked down at her as the two hundred elves echoed the cry of
"Tai'marawee!"
Elbryan considered the words: tai for "bird" and marawee for "night."
"The Nightbird," Lady Dasslerond explained. "You have been named Nightbird
on this, the evening of your birth."
Elbryan swallowed hard, not comprehending what this was all about.
Juraviel and Tuntun certainly had not prepared him for such a ceremony.
Without explanation, Lady Dasslerond then threw a handful of glittering
powder in Elbryan's face.
All the world seemed to stop, then to start again but more slowly. The
elvish singing and all the harmony of the forest had renewed, and he was alone
again in the middle of the field, turning as the circle turned. So gradually
that Elbryan never noticed it, the elven voices faded away one by one. He
realized he was alone long after all the elves had gone, and before he could
decipher any meaning to it all, sleep overtook him, right there, naked in the
middle of the field.
The night of his birth.
* * *
Belli'mar Joycenevial nodded his head as he considered the product of his
love. They had named the ranger Nightbird, and so the elf's dream had not
deceived him. This bow, Hawkwing by name, certainly fit all that Elbryan had
become.
Joycenevial held the beautiful weapon up before him. It was taller than
he, rubbed and stained to glassy smoothness -- even in the dim light of the
single candle, Hawkwing's dark green, silverlined hue shone clearly -- with a
sculpted handgrip and delicate, tapered ends. The removable high tip was set
with three feathers, so perfectly aligned that they appeared as one when the bow
was at rest.
Hawkwing and Nightbird -- the old elf liked the connection. This would be
the last bow he ever crafted, for he knew beyond doubt that if he made a
thousand more, he would never near the perfection of this weapon.

Elbryan awoke as he had fallen asleep, alone and naked on the field,
except that he found a red strip of cloth tied about his left arm, a green strip
tied about his right, both crossing the middle of his huge biceps. He considered
them for a moment, but didn't even think of removing them. Then he turned his
attention to the awakening world about him. The dawn had long passed; Elbryan
knew that he had missed his sword-dance, for the first time since it had been
taught to him. Somehow, that morning, it didn't matter. The young man spotted
his cloak and wrapped it about him, but then, instead of returning to his tree
house, he went to the Oracle, where he had left his mirror, blanket, and chair.
"Uncle Mather?"
The spirit was waiting for him, serene in the depths of the mirror. A
thousand questions came to Elbryan, but before he could utter even the first,
his mind was clouded, by images of a road, of a moor and a forest, of a valley
of evergreen trees that seemed vaguely familiar.
Elbryan fought to steady his breathing; he was beginning to understand.
Dark terror crept up all around him, threatening to swallow him where he sat,
and he desperately wanted to ask Uncle Mather about it all, to relieve himself
one more time of those doubts.
 But this time, Elbryan was a receptacle and not the speaker. This time, he
rested back, even closed his eyes, and let that unknown path find its place in
his mind.
He came out of the cave even less relaxed than he had been when he had
gone in, his face reflecting his fear and uncertainty, more questions raised
than answered.
When he got back to Caer'alfar, he was surprised to see the place
deserted. He moved quickly to his tree house and found it empty of all his
possessions -- his clothing, his baskets for collecting the milk-stones.
A new set of clothes, finely made, was laid out on the floor before him.
They had to be for him, for they would obviously fit none other in Caer'alfar.
Unless, Elbryan pondered, another would-be ranger had been brought in.
He shook that thought away, shrugged off his cloak, and began donning the
clothing: deerskin boots, high arid soft; supple breeches with a narrow belt
made of rope lined with silverel for strength; a soft sleeveless shirt with a
leather vest lined in silverel; and finally, a thick forest-green traveling
cloak and a lighter-green triangular huntsmen's cap.
Elbryan looked around, wondering what he was expected to do next. He
thought of the field again and made his way there, to find all the elves of
Caer'alfar waiting for him, this time standing quietly in neatly ordered rows.
In front of the gathering stood Lady Dasslerond and Belli'mar Juraviel. They
motioned immediately for Elbryan to join them.
When he got there, Juraviel handed him a full pack, a fine knife strapped
on one side, a balanced hand axe on the other.
A long moment passed before Elbryan realized that the elves were waiting
for him to properly inspect the gift. He fumbled with the ties and opened the
pack, then bent low and gingerly dumped it out onto the ground. Flint and steel,
a slender cord of the same silverel-lined rope as his belt, a packet of the same
red gel he had seen Juraviel use on the darkfern, the blanket and mirror needed
for Oracle -- which must have been retrieved soon after he had left the place --
and most telling of all, a, waterskin and a supply of food, carefully salted and
packed.
Elbryan looked up to his elven friend, but found no answer there.
Carefully, his hands trembling, he repacked the satchel, then stood tall before
Juraviel and the Lady of Andur'Blough Inninness.
"The red band is soaked in permanent salves," Juraviel explained. "Both
bandage and tourniquet. The green will filter air when placed over nose and
mouth, will even allow you to pass under water for a short time."
"These are our gifts to you, Nightbird," Lady Dasslerond added. "These and
this!" She snapped her fingers and Belli'mar Joycenevial stepped forth from the
ranks of elves, cradling the beautiful bow.
"Hawkwing," the old elf explained, handing it over. "It will serve as a
staff, as well." With a simple movement, he removed the feathered tip, taking
the bowstring with it, then just as easily replaced it, bending the bow to
restring it with hardly an effort. "Fear not, for though it seems delicate,
you'll not break it. Not by striking, not by a bolt of lightning, not by the
breath of a great dragon!"
His proclamation was met by a sudden burst of well-deserved cheering for
the old elf.
"Draw it," Juraviel prompted.
Elbryan put down the pack and raised the bow. He was amazed by its
balance, by the smoothness of its long and comfortable draw. As the bow bent,
the three feathers on its top tip separated from one another, looking like the
"fingers" on the end of the wing of a gliding hawk.
"Hawkwing," the old bowyer said again to Elbryan. "It will serve you as
bow for all your days, and as staff until you have earned your sword, if ever
you do."
 Tears in his eyes, the old elf handed over a quiver full of long arrows,
then slowly turned and moved back to his place in line.
"Our gifts to you," Lady Dasslerond said again. "Which do you consider the
most precious?"
Elbryan paused for a long while, understanding that this was a critical
moment for him, a subtle test that he could not fail. "All the supplies and
clothes," he began, "are worthy of a king, even a king of elves. And this bow,"
he said with all reverence, looking at Joycenevial. "I am sure that it has no
equal and know that I am truly blessed in carrying it.
"But the Oracle," Elbryan continued, turning back to Lady Dasslerond, his
voice firm, "that is the gift I hold most precious."
The Lady didn't blink, but suddenly Elbryan knew that he spoke mistakenly.
Perhaps it was the slightly crestfallen look of his friend Juraviel that tipped
him to the truth of his own thoughts.
"No," he said quietly, "that is not the greatest of your gifts."
"What is?" the Lady prompted anxiously.
"Nightbird," Elbryan replied without hesitation. "All that I am; all that
I have become. I am a ranger now, and no gift in all the world -- not all the
gold, not all the silverel, not all the kingdoms -- could be greater. The
greatest gift is the name you have given me, the name I have earned through your
patience and your time, the name that marks me as elf-friend. There could be no
higher honor, no higher responsibility."
"You are ready to face that responsibility," Juraviel dared to interject.
"It is time for you to go," Lady Dasslerond stated.
Elbryan's first instinct was to ask where, but he held the thought
private, trusting that the elves would tell him if he needed to know. When they
did not, when they did nothing but bow to him once, then filter out of the
field, leaving him, once again completely alone, he had his answer.
The Oracle had shown him the way.

The land was relatively flat and brown, with sparse low shrubs poking here
and there. But the gentle slopes were deceiving and the ranger, running smooth,
could not usually see very far in any direction. There were the Moorlands -- the
Soupy Bogs, they had been affectionately called by the settlers on the edge of
the Wilderlands. To the child Elbryan, this had been the place of wildly
exaggerated fireside tales.
Except that now, he ran through the Moorlands, and recalling those tales
of howling beasts and horrid guardians wasn't very comforting.
The mist was light this day, not closing in on the man as it had the
previous day, when Elbryan felt as if watching eyes were with him every step. He
came over a rise and saw a silvery stream winding below him, meandering this way
and that across the brown clay. Instinctively, the ranger's hand went to his
waterskin, and he found it less than half full. He trotted down to the stream,
which was just a few feet across and less than a foot deep, and dipped his hand,
nodding when he found that the water was quite clear. The ground here was simply
too compacted to be swept up in the light flow. Rivulets of runoff had been
crystalline all through the Moorlands, except in those low basins where the
water collected and remained, where the ground and water seemed to blend, to
melt together into a thick muddy stew.
Elbryan continued his inspection of the stream to make sure that nothing
ominous was swimming along its course, then hooked his pack on the stiff branch
of a prickly shrub and gingerly removed his boots. He had been running for five
days, the last two in the Moorlands. The cool water and the soft bed beneath it
felt good indeed on his sore feet; he briefly considered pulling off all his
clothes and lying down in the flow.
But then he felt something, or heard something. One of his senses subtly
called out a warning to him. The ranger froze where he stood, tuned his senses
outward to his environment. The muscles in his feet relaxed, nerves on end,
feeling for vibrations beneath him. He turned his head side to side slowly, eyes
sharp.
He noted a splash, not so far in the distance upstream.
Elbryan considered his position. The stream flowed around one of the
deceivingly high rises, turning out of sight just a couple dozen yards from
where he stood.
He heard another splash, closer, and then a voice, though he could not
make out the words. He looked around again, this time searching for a vantage
point, a perch from which he might ambush any enemies. The terrain wasn't very
promising; the best he could do would be backtrack up the rise and crouch just
beyond the ridgeline. He would have to time his move perfectly, though, for
various areas of that high ground would be visible from around the upstream
bend.
Elbryan dismissed the notion altogether; he was on the eastern edge of the
Moorlands by now, not so far from human settlements. Whoever or whatever was
coming certainly wasn't kicking up a storm -- it could not be giants. There was
no reason for him to think that these would be enemies.
Even if they were, Nightbird had Hawkwing in hand.
He pulled his forest-green cloak tighter about his shoulders, lifted the
hood up over his head and cap, then went about his business, crouching low to
dip his waterskin in the stream.
The noise increased -- by the volume and consistency of the splashing,
Elbryan figured there must be about a half dozen bipedal creatures approaching.
More important to him, though, was the continuing conversation, not the words,
of which he could understand only a few, but the high, grating tone of the
voices. Elbryan had heard such voices before.
The splashing and talking stopped suddenly; the creatures had rounded the
bend. Elbryan remained crouching. He peeked out around the side of his hood to
make sure that they carried no bows.
Goblins, six of them, stood and gawked from barely thirty feet away, one
with a spear up on its shoulder, but not yet ready to throw. The others held
clubs and crude swords, but thankfully, no bows.
Elbryan stayed low. With his posture and his cloak the creatures couldn't
be sure of his race.
"Eeyan kos?" one of them called.
Elbryan smiled under his hood and did not look the goblins' way.
"Eeyan kos?" the same one asked again. "Dokdok crus?"
"Duck, duck, goose," Elbryan said under his breath, the name of a game he
had played perhaps a decade before. He smiled again as he thought of that
innocent time, but it was not a longlasting sentiment, swept away in the wave of
darker emotions as he considered what creatures such as these had done to his
world.
The goblin called out again. It was time to answer, he knew, and since he
had no idea what the goblin was saying, he merely stood up tall, too tall to be
any goblin, and slowly dropped back the hood of his cloak.
Half of the goblin party shrieked; the spear wielder accompanied its yell
by rushing three strides forward and hurling its weapon.
Elbryan waited until the last possible moment, then flashed Hawkwing
across in front of him, deflecting the spear. He moved the bow around and out as
it connected, diverting then defeating the spear's momentum, turning it
harmlessly in midair and then catching it mid-shaft in his right hand as his
left brought Hawkwing back to his side.
Suddenly he held the spear, aimed right back at its original wielder. That
stopped the goblins cold before they could even begin to charge.
Emotions churned confusingly in the young man. He remembered the teachings
of the elves, mostly of tolerance, though they held no love for goblinkind or
for any of the fomorian races. However, Elbryan was not in any human settlement,
not in any land claimed by his kind, and quite possibly was within the
boundaries of goblin territory. If that was the case, would he be justified in
waging battle with these six?
Yet, one had just attacked him, though it might have come more from fear
than aggression. And Elbryan, whatever logical reasoning he summoned, could not
possibly dismiss those memories of Dundalis.
He hesitated; were these goblins responsible for what their kin had done
to Elbryan's home? The one the elves had named Nightbird had to give himself an
honest answer; he owed that much, at least, to Belli'mar Juraviel.
A flick of his powerful wrist sent the spear flying back the way it had
come, to land with a splash and stick up from the stream just a foot or so in
front of the creature who had thrown it. Elbryan cast a warning glance the
goblins' way, then turned sideways to them, focusing on the water, and bent down
to finish filling his waterskin.
He had given them one chance; a large part of him, that boy who remembered
Dundalis, hoped they would not take it.
He heard and felt the water stirring as the creatures came on slowly. He
sensed that at least two had broken away, moving out of the stream to flank him
front and back.
Elbryan measured their approach, kept wary for any hint that the spear was
coming his way once more.
Everything seemed to stop, all movement, all splashing. The creatures were
not more than ten feet away, he knew. Slowly he turned square with the main
group of four, rising to stand straight, a foot and more higher than his tallest
foe.
"Eenegash!" the closest and ugliest of the group demanded, holding forth
its sword, a two-foot blade not unlike the one Olwan had given Elbryan for his
patrols.
"I do not understand," he replied evenly.
The goblins muttered something among themselves; Elbryan realized that
they could not understand his language either. Then the ugly one turned back to
him.
"Eenegash! " it said again, more forcefully, and it pointed its sword at
the staff, then at the riverbank.
"I hardly think so," Elbryan replied, smiling widely and shaking his head.
In a barely noticeable movement, the ranger pulled the feathered tip from the
bow, tucking it and the bowstring into his belt.
The goblin gave a threatening growl. Elbryan shook his head again.
The creature rushed to close half the distance and prodded with its sword,
a movement more of intimidation than an actual attack. But it was the creature
who was surprised.
Elbryan grabbed the staff, right hand over left; reversed his grip with
his left as the pole started moving, and snapped it across so quickly in front
of him that the goblin never had a chance to move. The staff connected
simultaneously on the sword and the goblin's hand, knocking the weapon from the
creature's grasp and launching it a dozen feet away. A subtle shift, still too
quick for the creature to dodge, and Elbryan stabbed the tapered end out
straight, striking the goblin on its sloping forehead right above and between
the eyes, laying it out straight in the stream.
With a whoop of delight, the other goblins, predictably, came on.
Elbryan brought his staff back in, letting go with his left hand, flipping
with his right to send the forward tip under. Never breaking the momentum, he
extended his right arm out, catching the closing goblin, the one that had run
out of the stream to flank the man, completely by surprise, Hawkwing's tip
stabbing right under its chin.
 Back in came the weapon, a full and defensive spin between the ranger and
the three goblins coming along in the stream. Elbryan caught the staff firmly in
his left hand and extended that arm out in similar fashion so that the other
flanking goblin was poked away. Back in came the staff, half spun and caught
again in the right hand, half spun, angled outward diagonally, and caught again
in the left, and then the right hand catching it, too, as the trailing end came
around and over, Elbryan shifting the weapon's angle and striding boldly ahead.
The downward chop connected squarely on the head of the center goblin, the
spearwielder, Hawkwing's incredible hardness splitting wide the creature's skull
with a resounding crack!
Elbryan swept his staff out to the left, knocking aside a club strike,
then back to the right, parrying a sword. Back left, back right, each time the
angle shifting to defeat the intended attack. Then back left, then left again,
knocking wide the creature's club arm. Elbryan stepped left as well and spun,
avoiding an awkward cut of its sword. He came around hard and low, Hawkwing
flying before him. The goblin, to its credit, recognized the circuitous attack
and managed to get its club down, but Elbryan merely lifted Hawkwing's flying
tip, cracking across the creature's skinny forearm, shattering bone. The club
fell into the stream; the goblin shrieked and clutched at its arm.
Elbryan stepped forward, facing the creature squarely, staff coming
horizontal in front of him, and punched out with his left, right, left, Hawkwing
swishing about to smack the goblin hard on alternate sides of its head. The
ranger dropped his right foot back after the last strike, retracting the staff,
then turned sidelong to his current foe, expecting an attack from the sword
wielder. Seeing that creature in full flight, Elbryan stabbed the staff back out
hard to his left, hitting the dazed and battered goblin right in the face.
He didn't see but heard the movement as the goblin that had come in at his
left struggled to its feet. Hawkwing went swinging again, turning a vertical
circle under and then over Elbryan's right shoulder as he turned and leaped out
to the left. Down raced the staff above the angle of the terrified goblin's
pitiful attempt to parry, crashing hard against the base of the creature's neck.
The goblin jolted perfectly still and then, as if the wave of energy had rolled
right down to its feet and then come rushing back up, the creature went into a
weird Backward leap, landing on its feet for a long moment, then slowly falling
over.
Elbryan turned and dropped into a defensive crouch, but no enemies
presented themselves. The first one he had hit, the leader, was. on its hands
and knees in the middle of the stream, facing away, too dazed to even get back
to its feet. The one he had hit to the right of the stream was still on the
ground, squirming and gasping for air that would hardly come. This last one he
had hit was surely dead, as was the spear wielder, and the one who had taken
four blows to the head lay unmoving at the stream's edge, its face in the water.
The last of the group, the one with the sword, faced Elbryan from twenty paces,
hopping up and down, hurling curses that the ranger did not understand.
Casually, in no hurry, Elbryan replaced the feathered tip of his bow and
in one fluid motion, bent the shaft around his leg and hooked the bowstring over
the bottom edge.
The goblin caught on, howled, and fled.
Up came Hawkwing; three feathers separated. Clear and straight for thirty-
five feet.
The arrow slammed the goblin square in the back, lifting it clear of the
stream and sending it another five feet. Arms and legs flailing, it flopped
heavily, facedown in the water.
Grim Elbryan retrieved the axe from the side of his pack and finished the
task at hand.
Then he was on his way, running across the Moorlands.
Part Three
CONFLICT

Did you go home, Uncle Mother? When you walked away from Andur'Blough Inninness,
from your elven home, did you return to the place you had known in your
childhood?
I had thought it a vision that led me across the Moorlands then north to a
sweeping vale of knee-deep caribou moss and stark pines. Now I wonder if it
wasn't merely a memory returned, a backtracking of the same course the elves.
had taken on that day when they pulled rite from Dundalis. Perhaps they then
placed a veil over my memory, that I had no desire to escape Caer'alfar and run
back to the place of my kinfolk. Perhaps that last Oracle in Andur'Blough
Inninness was no more than a lifting of the veil.
I had not even considered this until my northern trek led me back to these
lands familiar. I feared that I had erred in my course, that I had returned home
by memory, not by vision.
Now I understand This land is my land, my ranger haunt. It is under my
protection, though the proud and hardy folk here would hardly believe they need
it, and certainly would refuse it should I ask.
They are more numerous than when I lived here last. Weedy Meadow remains a
village of four score -- the goblins never attacked after the sacking of
Dundalis -- and a new village, nearly twice that in number, has been built some
thirty miles to the west, even further into the Wilderlands. End-o'-the-World,
they call it, and a fitting name it seems.
And, Uncle Mother, they have rebuilt Dundalis and have kept its name. I do
not yet understand how I feel about this. Is the new Dundalis a tribute to the
last or a mockery? It pained me when, walking along the wide cart path, l
happened upon a signposts new signpost, for we never had such things --
proclaiming the village limits, the edge of Dundalis. For a moment, I admit, I
even held fast a fantasy that my memory of the destruction, of the carnage, was
in error. Perhaps, I dared to think, the elves had tricked me into believing
that Dundalis and all its folk had died, to keep me from fleeing their custody,
or from wanting to flee.
Under the name on the signpost, someone had scrawled "Dundalis dan
Dundalis, " and under that, another prankster had added "McDundalis, " both
indications that this place was "the son of Dundalis. I should have understood
the implication.
It was with great anticipation that l walked that last mile to the village
proper -- to see a place that I knew not.
There is a tavern now, larger than the old common house and built on the
foundation of my old home.
Built by strangers.
It was such an awkward moment, Uncle Mather, a feeling of absolute
displacement. l had come home, and yet, this was not my home. The people were
much the same -- strong and firm, tough as the deepest winter night -- and yet,
they were not the same. No Brody Gentle, no Bunker Crawyer, no Shane McMichaer
no Thomas Ault, no Mother and Father, no Pony.
No Dundalis.
I refused the invitation. of the tavern's proprietor, a jolly-looking man,
and without a word -- I suppose that was the moment the folk of the village
began to suspect that l was a bit unusual -- headed back the way I had come. I
took my frustrations out on the signpost, I admit, tearing off the lowest board,
the scribbled references to the original village.
Never had I felt so alone, not even that morning after the disaster. The
world had moved on without me. I meant to come and speak with you then, Uncle
Mather, and so I crossed by the town, up the slope on the northern edge. There
are several small caves on the backside of that slope, overlooking the wide
vale. In one of those, so I believed, I would find Oracle. I would find Uncle
Mather. I would find peace.
I never made it over that ridge. It is a funny thing, memory. To the
elves, it is a way to walk backward in time, to rediscover old scenes from the
perspective of new enlightenments.
So it was that morning on the ridge north of Dundalis. I saw her,
Uncle Mather, my Pony, as alive to me as ever she was, as wonderful and
beautiful. I remembered her so very vividly that she was indeed beside me once
again for a few fleeting moments.
I have no new friends among the current residents of Dundalis, and in
truth, I expect none. But I have found peace, Uncle Mather. I have come home.
-ELBRYAN WYNDON

CHAPTER 23
The Black Bear

"It came roaring down that hill," the man was saying, waving his arm frantically
in the direction of the forested slope north of Dundalis. "I got my family into
the root cellar -- damned glad I dug the thing!"
The speaker was about his own age, the ranger noticed as he approached the
group of ten -- eight men and two women -- who were gathered outside the nearly
destroyed cabin on the outskirts of Dundalis.
"Damn big bear," one of the other men said.
"Twelve footer," the first man, the victim of the attack, remarked,
holding his arms as far apart as he could possibly stretch.
"Brown?" Elbryan asked, though the question was merely a formality, for a
twelve-foot-tall bear would have to be brown.
The group turned as one to regard the stranger. They had seen Elbryan
about town on several occasions over the last few months, mostly sitting quietly
in the tavern, the Howling Sheila, but none, save Belster O'Comely, the
innkeeper, had spoken a word to the suspicious man. Their reluctance was clearly
etched on their faces as they regarded the outsider and his unusual dress: the
forest green cloak and the triangular cap.
"Black," the victim corrected evenly, his eyes narrowed.
Elbryan nodded, accepting that as more likely the truth than the man's
previous statement. He knew two things from the color: first, that the man was
surely exaggerating the bear's size and second, that this attack was far from
normal. A brown bear might come roaring down the hill, hurling itself upon the
cabin as if the shelter were some elk, but black bears were shy creatures by
nature, far from aggressive unless cornered, or defending their cubs.
"What business is it of yours?" another man asked, his tone making it seem
to Elbryan as if he were being accused of the attack.
Ignoring the comment, the ranger walked past the group and knelt low,
inspecting a set of tracks. As he suspected, the bear was nowhere near the size
the excited farmer was claiming, probably closer to five or six feet in height,
perhaps two to three hundred pounds. Elbryan didn't really begrudge the man his
excitement, though. A six-foot bear could indeed appear twice that height when
angered. And the amount of damage to the house was remarkable.
"We cannot tolerate a rogue," a large man, Tol Yuganick, insisted. Elbryan
looked up to regard him. He was broad shouldered and strong, forceful in manner
as he was in speech. His face' was clean shaven, seeming almost babyish, but
anyone looking at powerful Tol knew that to be a deceptive façade. Elbryan
noticed the man's hands -- for hands were often the most telling of all -- were
rough and thick with calluses. He was a worker, a true frontiersman.
 "We'll get together a group and go out and kill the damned thing," he
said, and he spat upon the ground.
Elbryan was surprised that the burly man hadn't decided to go out alone
and hunt the bear.
"And what of you?" the man bellowed, looking at the ranger. "You were
asked what business this might be of yours, but of yet I've heard no answer."
Tol moved closer to the stooping ranger as he spoke.
Elbryan came up to his full height. He was as tall as the man and, while
not as heavy, certainly more muscular.
"Do you think that you belong in Dundalis?" the man asked bluntly, again
the words sounding like an accusation, or a threat.
Elbryan didn't blink. He wanted to scream out that he belonged in this
place more than any of them, that he had been here when the foundation of their
beloved tavern was that of his own home!
He held the words, though, and easily. His years with the elves had given
him that control, that discipline. He was here, in Dundalis, in Weedy Meadow, in
End-o'-the-World, to give the folk some measure of protection that they had
never known. If an elven-trained ranger had been about those seven years before,
then Dundalis would not have been sacked, Elbryan believed, and in the face of
that responsibility, the surly man's demeanor seemed a minor thing.
"The bear will not return," was all the ranger said to them, and he calmly
walked away.
He heard the grumbling behind him, heard the word "strange" several times
-- and not spoken with any affection. They were still planning to go out and
hunt the bear, Elbryan realized, but he was determined to get there first. A
black bear had attacked a farmhouse and that alone was enough of a mystery to
force the ranger to investigate.

Elbryan was amazed at how easy it was for him to track the bear. The beast
had run off from the farmhouse, creating a swath of devastation through the
brush, even knocking over small trees, venting a rage that the ranger had never
before witnessed in an animal. The tracks were surely those of a medium-sized
bear, but Elbryan felt as if he were tracking a fomorian giant or some other
evil, reasoning creature, some creature purposefully bent on destruction. He
feared that the bear was in the grip of some disease, perhaps, or was wounded.
Whatever the source, with every passed scene of utter destruction, the ranger's
fear mounted that he would not be able to spare the creature. He had hoped
simply to drive the bear faraway into the deeper woodlands.
He moved up the side of one steep hill, peering intently into every
shadow. Bears were not stupid creatures; they had been known to backtrack
hunters, taking the men from behind. Elbryan crouched by the side of one small
tree. He placed his hand on the ground, feeling for subtle vibrations, anything
that might offer a hint.
He caught a slight movement of a bush out of the corner of his eye, The
ranger didn't move except to shift his head to better view the shadow. He noted
the wind, noted that he was upwind of the spot.
Out came the bear in full charge, roaring.
Elbryan shifted to one knee, fitted a heavy arrow, and, with a sigh of
complete resignation, let fly. He scored a hit, the arrow skipping off the
bear's face and burrowing into its chest, but the bear kept coming. The ranger
was amazed at the sheer speed of the thing. He had seen bears in Andur'Blough
Inninness, had even seen one run off when Juraviel had banged two stones
together, but this creature's speed was outrageous, as fast as any horse might
run.
A second arrow followed the first, diving deep into the bear's shoulder.
It bellowed again and hardly slowed.
 Elbryan knew that he would not get the third shot away. If it had been a
brown bear, he would have taken to the trees, but a black could climb any tree
faster than he could.
He waited, crouched, as the bear bore down on him, then, at the last
instant, the ranger went into a sidelong roll, down the hill.
The bear skidded to a stop and turned to follow. When Elbryan rolled to
his knees, facing up the hill to the bear, the creature went up onto its hind
legs, standing tall and imposing.
But leaving some vital areas exposed.
Elbryan pulled the bowstring back with all his strength; Hawkwing's three
feathers were as wide apart as they could go. The ranger hated this business as
he sighted the hollow on the bear's breast.
And then it was over, suddenly, the creature rolling, dead. Elbryan went
to the corpse. He waited a while to make sure that it would not stir, then moved
to its muzzle, lifting its upper lip. He feared that he would find foamy saliva
there, an indication of the most wicked disease. If that was the case, then
Elbryan would have his work cut out from him indeed, hunting almost day and
night for other infected animals, everything from raccoons and weasels to bats.
No foam; the ranger breathed a sigh of relief. It was short-lived, though,
as Elbryan tried to figure what, then, had caused this normally docile animal to
go so bad. He continued his inspection of the mouth and face, noted that the
eyes were clear and not runny, then moved along the bear's torso.
He found his answer in the form of four barbed darts, stuck deep into the
bear's rump. He worked one out -- not an easy task -- and inspected its tip.
Elbryan recognized the black, sappy poison, a pain -- inducing product of a rare
black birch tree.
With a growl, the ranger threw the dart to the ground. This was no
accident but a purposeful attack on the bear. The poor beast had been driven mad
by' pain, and someone -- some human, most likely, given the type of the darts --
had done it.
Elbryan gathered his wits and began his dance of praise to the spirit of
the bear, thanking it for its gift of food and warmth. Then he methodically went
about skinning and cleaning it. To waste the creature's useful body, to leave
the bear to rot or even to bury it whole in the ground would, by elven standards
-- and by Elbryan's -- be a complete insult to the bear, and thus to Nature.
His work was done late that afternoon, but the ranger did not rest, nor
did he return to Dundalis to inform the townsfolk of the kill. Something,
someone, had brought on this tragedy.
Nightbird went hunting again.

They were not much more difficult to find than the bear. Their hut, a mere
shack of logs and old boards -- Elbryan got the distinct impression that many of
these had come from the ruins of Dundalis -- was at the top of a hill. Branches
had been tossed all about for camouflage, but many of these had already
withered, their dry and brown leaves a telltale sign.
The ranger heard them long before he caught sight of them, laughing and
singing terribly off-key, though the voices were surely human, as he had
suspected.
Elbryan glided stealthily up the hill, tree to tree, shadow to shadow,
though he doubted the men inside would have heard him had he been accompanied by
a hundred villagers and a score of fomorian giants! He recognized the implements
of the trapping trade hanging all about the shack, along with dozens of drying
pelts. These men knew animals, Elbryan understood. In a vat not far from the
back wall of the shack, the ranger found a thick concoction of black liquid, and
quickly surmised it to be the same irritant poison that had been used on the
bear.
 The walls of the shack were in bad disrepair, with cracks between every
board. Elbryan peeked in.
Three men lay about on piled skins, black bear mostly, drinking foamy beer
from old mugs. Every so often, one would shift to the side and dip his mug into
a barrel, first brushing away the many flies and bees drawn to the liquid.
Elbryan shook his head in disgust, but he reminded himself to keep a
measure of respect. These were men of the Wilderlands, strong and heavily armed.
One had many daggers within easy grasp, hanging on a bandolier that crisscrossed
his chest. Another sported a heavy axe, while the last earned a slender sword.
From his vantage point, the ranger noted, too, that a bar was in place across
the one door.
He moved around to the front of the house and took the dagger from his
pack. The door did not fit the opening well, leaving a wide crack on one side,
wide enough to admit the dagger's blade. A flick of the wrist dislodged the bar
and Elbryan kicked open the door, striding a single step into the shack.
The men scrambled, spilling beer, one shouting aloud as he rolled across
his sword, the hilt catching hard on his hip. They were up soon enough, Elbryan
standing impassively by the door, Hawkwing, its feathered tip and string
removed, in his hand like some unthreatening walking stick.
"Whad'ye want?" asked one of the men, a barrel-chested brute whose face
was more scar than beard. Except for that hardened face with its wild, untended
beard, this man could have passed as a brother of Tol Yuganick, Elbryan noted
distastefully. Surely their bodies were cut from the same, rather large, mold.
The fellow had his huge axe out in front of him, and if Elbryan couldn't offer a
reasonable answer, there was little doubt what he meant to do with it. The
swordsman, tall and lean with not a hair anywhere on his head, shadowed the
burly man, gaping at Elbryan from over his companion's shoulder; while the
third, a skinny, nervous wretch, moved to the far corner, rubbing his fingers --
which weren't so far from his many daggers.
"I have come to speak with you about a particular bear," Elbryan answered
coolly.
"What bear?" the burly man replied. "We got skins."
"The bear you maddened with poisoned darts," Elbryan answered bluntly.
"The bear that destroyed a farm in Dundalis and nearly killed a family."
"Go on now." The man spat.
"The same poison you have brewing out back," Elbryan went an, "a rare
concoction, known to few."
"That don't prove nothing," the man retorted, snapping his dirty fingers
in the air. "Now get on out of here, else yell soon feel the edge of me axe!"
"I think not," the ranger answered. "There is the matter of compensation -
- to the farmers and to me for my efforts in hunting the bear."
"C-compen --?" the tall, bald man stuttered.
"Payment," said Elbryan. He saw the movement even as he spoke, the man
from the corner drawing and throwing a dagger with practiced ease.
Elbryan planted the ball of his left foot and spun clockwise, the dagger
flying harmlessly past to stick deep in the wall. The ranger came round as if he
would launch a horizontal swipe, but he recognized the move was anticipated: the
burly man's axe was up to block. As soon as he started around, then, Elbryan
turned his right foot out and went around counterclockwise, pulling in his hip
to avoid a swipe of that axe.
Now he launched his attack, dropping down to one knee, slapping his staff
across to catch the inside of the overbalanced man's leg. A shift of the angle
sent his staff poking straight up, smacking the man's groin. Faster than a cat,
Elbryan retracted the staff a foot, shifted its angle, and poked ahead three
times in rapid succession, prodding the burly man in the hollow of his chest.
He fell away and Elbryan came up hard, bringing Hawkwing horizontal above
his head in both hands to catch the downward chop of the second man's sword. Up
came the ranger's knee, slamming the man's belly, and as he started to double
over, Elbryan turned his staff, deflecting the sword to the side. He twisted his
staff around the man's arm, hooking him under the armpit, stepped with his left
foot across his body behind the man's entangled side, then heaved with all his
strength, launching the wretch into the air to land heavily on his back and the
back of his head.
Elbryan immediately swung about, realizing he was vulnerable. Predictably,
another dagger was on its way, and the ranger just got Hawkwing up in time to
block its flight. He loosened his grip on his staff as the dagger connected so
that it wouldn't bounce far away. As fortune would have it, the dagger went
straight up, and Elbryan seized it, catching it by the tip.
In the blink of an eye, the ranger stood, staff in one hand out before
him, his other hand holding a dagger cocked behind his ear, ready to throw.
The skinny man, two daggers in hand, blanched and let his blades drop to
the floor.
Elbryan fought hard to restrain the rage that called for him to put that
dagger right into the foul man's chest, a rage that only intensified when the
ranger thought of what these three had done to the bear and of the potentially
devastating consequences of their foolhardy actions.
With a growl, he let fly, the dagger slamming hard into the wall right
beside the man's head. Never taking his eyes from Elbryan, whimpering all the
way, the skinny man slumped to a sitting position in the corner.
Elbryan looked about; the other two were staggering to their feet, neither
holding a weapon.
"What are your names?" the ranger demanded.
The men looked curiously at one another.
"Your names!"
"Paulson," the burly man answered, "Cric, and Chipmunk," he finished,
indicating first the tall man, then the dagger thrower.
"Chipmunk?" Elbryan inquired.
"Skittery type," Paulson explained.
The ranger shook his head. "Know this, Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk: you
share the forest with me, and I will be watching your every move. Another prank,
another cruelty, as with the bear, will bring you more harm than this, I
promise. And I will be watching your trap lines -- no longer shall you use the
jaw traps --"
Paulson started to complain, but Elbryan glared so fiercely at him that he
seemed to melt.
"Nor any other traps that inflict suffering on your prey."
"We've to earn our money," Chipmunk remarked in a shaky voice.
"There are better ways," Elbryan answered evenly. "And in the hopes that
you will find those ways, I'll demand no coins from you for compensation . . .
this time." He looked at each of them, meeting their stares, his own showing
clearly that he was not speaking empty threats.
"And who might ye be?" Paulson dared to ask.
Elbryan shifted back on his heels, considering the question. "I am
Nightbird," he answered.
Cric snickered, but Paulson, locked with that intense gaze, held a hand up
in his companion's face.
"A name you would do well to remember," Elbryan finished, and he headed
for the door, boldly turning his back on the dangerous threesome.
They didn't begin to entertain any thoughts of attacking.
The ranger went around to the back and dumped out the cauldron of poison.
As he left, he took a few of the jaw traps, nasty pieces of toothy iron hinged
and set with heavy springs so that they would clamp hard on the leg of any
passing animal.
 His next stop was the tavern, the Howling Sheila, in Dundalis. A dozen men
and women were in the common room, boisterous until the stranger entered.
Elbryan went to the bar first, nodding to Belster O'Comely, the closest thing he
had to a friend in the area.
"Just water," the ranger said, and Belster mouthed the predictable words
right along with him, then pushed a glass out to him.
"Word of the bear?" the jolly innkeeper asked.
"The bear is dead," Elbryan replied grimly, and he walked to the far side
of the room, taking a seat at the corner table, his back to the wall.
He noted that several other patrons shifted their seats, one woman even
bluntly turning her back on him.
Elbryan brought the tip of his triangular cap down low and smiled. He
understood that it would be like this. He was not much like these folk; no
longer was he much like any human, except for those rare few who had ventured to
the valley of the elves, who had spent years beside the likes of Belli'mar
Juraviel and Tuntun. Elbryan missed those friends now -- even Tuntun. It was
true that he had been out of place in Caer'alfar, but in many ways the ranger
felt even more out of place here among folk who looked so much like him but who
saw the world through very different eyes.
Still, despite the prominent reminders of his position, Elbryan's smile
was genuine. He had done well this day, though he regretted having to slay the
bear. His solace came in duty, in his vow that this Dundalis and the two
neighboring villages would not share the fate that had befallen his own village.
He remained in the Howling Sheila for nearly an hour, but not a person,
save Belster on Elbryan's way out, offered him so much as a glance.

CHAPTER 24
The Mad Friar

"Tinson," Warder Miklos Barmine said to Jill as she walked her watch along the
sea wall of Pireth Tulme.
Jill regarded the short, stout man curiously. She recognized the name
Tinson as that of the small hamlet some dozen miles inland from the fortress.
The place was no more than a score of houses and a tavern, a place of rogues and
whores servicing the soldiers of Pireth Tulme.
"The Waylaid Traveler," Barmine added in his typically curt manner.
"Another fight?" Jill asked.
"And something more," replied the warder, walking away. "Gather ten and
go."
Jill watched the man depart. She didn't like Miklos Barmine, not at all.
He had replaced Constantine Presso only three months before, the previous warder
sent north to command Pireth Danard. At first, Jill thought the new warder more
her style, a stickler for detail and duty. But he was a letch, a drooling,
grabby slob, who took it personally when Jill refused his advances. Even his
strict rules for duty had relaxed within the week, Pireth Tulme reverting to its
typical partying ways. Also, it had surprised Jill how much she missed
Constantine Presso, a decent man -- by Pireth Tulme's standards, at least. She
had served under Presso for more than a year, and he had always been a gentleman
to her, always respected her decision not to partake in the unending
festivities. Now, with Presso gone and the brooding Miklos Barmine in command,
Jill feared that the pressure on her would only increase.
She shook that dark thought away, turning her attention to the task at
hand. Bannine's punishment for her refusal to bed with him was always work --
little did the fool understand that his punishment was more like a reward to
Jill! There had been another fight, the fourth in less than two weeks, at the
Waylaid Traveler, the apparently appropriately named tavern in Tinson. What this
"something more," that Barmine had hinted at might be, Jill could not guess,
though she suspected it to be nothing extraordinary. The woman shrugged; at
least there was something to do now besides walking the wall.
She collected ten of Pireth Tulme's Coastpoint Guards, using their
hangovers as a tool for rejecting more of the others, then set out, double-
timing the march down the dirt path. They arrived in dirty Tinson late that
afternoon. The town square was empty and quiet it was always quiet, Jill noted,
for on the three previous occasions she had visited the place, she hadn't seen a
single child. The majority of Tinson's residents slept the day through,
preferring the revelry of the night.
A shout from the Waylaid Traveler caught Jill's attention.
"We must prepare!" came a bellow, a tremendous voice, clear even out here
at a distance and with a wall between the speaker and Jill. "Oh, evil, what a
foothold you have found! What fools are we to sleep as darkness rises!"
The group of soldiers entered the tavern openly through the front door,
doubling the number of patrons. The first thing Jill noticed was a huge, fat man
standing atop a table, waving an empty mug, sometimes in a threatening manner to
keep at bay the closer patrons, all obviously intent on knocking him from his
perch. Jill ordered her troop to filter about, then went to see the man behind
the serving bar.
"The mad friar," the barkeep explained. "He was in all the night, then
came back just a short while ago. Has no shortage of money, I can assure you!
They say he bartered jewels with merchants on the road, and though he didn't get
a fair price -- not even close -- he left with pouches full of gold."
Jill regarded the fat friar curiously. He wore the thick brown robes of
the Abellican Church, though they were old and threadbare in many places and
weathered, as if he had been out on the open road for a long, long time. His
black beard was thick and bushy, and he was tall, half a foot above six feet,
and had to weigh near to three hundred pounds. His shoulders were wide, his
bones thick and solid, but Jill got the feeling that the extra weight, most of
which was centered about his belly, was something fairly recent.
What struck Jill most about him was his almost feverish intensity, his
brown eyes showing a luster, a life, beyond anything she had seen in many years.
"Piety, dignity, poverty!" he yelled, and then he snorted derisively. "Ho,
ho, what!"
Jill recognized the litany -- piety, dignity, poverty -- the same one
Abbot Dobrinion Calislas had uttered on the fateful day of her wedding.
"Hah!" the huge man bellowed. "What piety is, there in whoring? What
dignity in foolhardiness? And what poverty? Gold leaf and jewels -- ah, the
jewels!"
"His song is not for changing," the barkeep said dryly. Then he yelled out
to the guards, "Will you get him down?"
Jill wasn't sure that they should move in so straightforward a manner
against the friar. The man's remark about whoring, in particular, had seemed to,
stir more than a few angry grumbles, and. she feared that any overt action, a
physical assault rather than trying to calm the man, would bring about a general
row. She could do little to stop her soldiers, though, given the lax chain of
command and the barkeep's permission.
She started across the room to try and keep things calm, stopping, though,
when she heard the barkeep add, too low for any others to hear, "And take care,
for he has a bit of magic about him."
"Damn," Jill muttered, turning back to see two of her soldiers, one of
them Gofflaw, reach up to grab the monk.
"Hah, preparedness training!" the fat man howled joyfully, and he grabbed
Gofflaw by the wrist and hoisted the surprised man into the air: Before the
soldier could begin to react, the powerful friar lifted him above his head, spun
him twice, then tossed him across the room.
 A third soldier drew sword and swiped out one of the table legs, bringing
the friar tumbling down atop the poor second man who had been reaching for him.
The monk hit the ground in a roll, showing surprising agility for one his size,
and came right back to his feet, shouting at the top of his lungs and barreling
over the next two closest people, one a soldier, one a townsman.
The fight was on in full.
The sheer power of the friar astounded Jill. The man ran every which way,
bowling over all who would stand before him, laughing maniacally all the while,
even when one of those dodging his charge landed a solid punch about his face or
neck. "Prepare!" he roared over and over, and he cried something about a dactyl
and then about a demon.
Jill watched him for a fete moments, honestly intrigued. The man was
obviously out of his mind, or at least he appeared so, but to Jill, who had
spent a year and a half in the Coastpoint Guards, a cry for preparedness and
virtue did not seem like such a bad thing.
A group of soldiers encircled the friar, one man quickly putting his sword
in link and calling for the monk to yield. There came a sudden, sharp flash of
blue, and all the soldiers were flying, their hair standing on-end. The friar
laughed wildly.
And he charged on. He rushed to one terrified woman and picked her up by
the shoulders. "Do not lay down for them!" he cried earnestly, and Jill had the
feeling that the man had some personal stake in his plea. "I beg of you, do not,
for you are part of the encroachment, do you not see? You are part of the
dactyl's gain!"
A soldier jumped on the friar from behind, and he was forced to let go of
the woman. He merely howled, though, and shrugged the man away, then charged on.
Jill cut in front of him; he recognized her as a woman and again slowed
and softened his approach.
Jill dove at his legs, rolling and sweeping with her own legs, sending the
burly friar tumbling headlong. Five men were atop him in an instant, grabbing
and twisting. Somehow, the huge friar managed to get back up to his feet, but
more soldiers and several of the townsfolk rushed in, finally subduing him: They
ushered the man to the door and unceremoniously threw him out.
Jill noted that Gofflaw drew out his sword and moved to follow.
"Let him be!" she commanded.
Gofflaw growled at her, but under Jill's unyielding glare, he replaced his
sword in its sheath.
"And if ye, show yerself again," another of the soldiers yelled, "then
know yell feel the bite of a sword!"
"Hear you the words of truth!" the mad friar yelled back at him. "Know me
for what I am, and not for the insulting names you give to me. I am the hound of
ill omen, the messenger of disaster!"
Ye're a drunk," roared the soldier.
The fat man sputtered something unintelligible and turned away, waving his
hand dismissively. "You will learn," he promised grimly. "You will learn."
Jill turned to the barkeep, the man merely shaking his head. "He's a
dangerous one," the man said.
Jill nodded, but she wasn't sure she agreed. The fat friar had made no
move to finish any of his attacks. He had tackled and punched, had thrown
Gofflaw halfway across the room, but no one, not even the friar, had been badly
injured. To frustrated Jill's thinking, Gofflaw could use a throw or two across
a room. She moved to the door to see the friar shuffling down the muddy lane,
weeping and crying out for the "sins of men" and the woeful state of
preparation.
He swung about, some score of yards from the tavern entrance, and launched
into a diatribe on the coming dark days, about a world unprepared to face the
forces of evil, about a darkness being fed by the internal rot of the land.
 "The man's crazy," one of the soldiers remarked.
"The mad friar," the barkeep replied.
Jill wasn't so sure of that. Not at all.

CHAPTER 25
Brother Justice

Master Jojonah looked down from an inconspicuous balcony at the large chamber,
bare of any furnishing but for a few practice riggings sitting against the far
wall. In the center of the room stood the stocky young man, his face haggard
from lack of sleep. He wore only a loincloth and stood defensively, shoulders
hunched, arms crossed to cover his belly and loins. Even his head was bare, for
his superiors had shaved it. He uttered a chant repeatedly, using it to bolster
his failing strength, and De'Unnero, the new master who had taken Siherton's
place, stalked about him, occasionally stinging him with a riding crop. Behind
Quintall stood a tenth-year immaculate.
"You are weak and useless!" De'Unnero screamed, smacking Quintall across
the shoulder blades. "And you were part of the conspiracy!"
Quintall's mouth moved to form the word "no," but no sound came forth,
managing only a pitiful shake of his head.
"You were!" De'Unnero roared, and he whipped Quintall again.
Master Jojonah could hardly bear to watch. Quintall's "training" had been
going on for more than a month now, ever since Father Abbot Markwart, looking
old and tired indeed, had seen a vision of Avelyn alive.
Avelyn! The very thought of the young brother sent shivers along Jojonah's
spine. Avelyn had killed Siherton -- the body, or what remained of it, had been
found only late that spring, almost a year to the day since the tragedy. And
worse, if Markwart's vision was true, Avelyn had survived and had run off with a
substantial supply of the sacred stones.
Jojonah closed his eyes and remembered all the times Siherton had warned
him about Avelyn's almost inhuman dedication. Avelyn would be trouble, Siherton
had promised, and the master's words had proven true. But why? Jojonah had to
wonder. What had precipitated the trouble, a fault of Avelyn's or the man's lack
of fault in an order grown perverse? Indeed, Brother Avelyn Desbris was trouble,
a dark mirror that the masters of St.-Mere-Abelle could not bear to gaze into.
Avelyn, by any measure that Jojonah could discern, was what a monk was supposed
to be, the truest of the true, and yet his manner could not agree with the
increasingly secular ways of the monastery. That the Order should be threatened
by the piety of a young monk was something Master Jojonah could not come to
terms with.
And yet, the master was too tired, too wrapped up in a sense of loss, both
for Siherton and Avelyn -- and for himself -- to try to make some peace within
the monastery. Markwart had become almost feverish in his desire to see Avelyn
and, more particularly, the sacred stones, brought back, and the Father Abbot's
word was sacrosanct.
The crack of the crop brought Jojonah's attention back to the scene at
hand. He hail never held any love for brutish Quintall, but still he pitied the
man. The conditioning ranged from sleep deprivation to long periods of hunger.
Quintall's strength, both physical and mental, would be torn away piece by piece
and then brought back under the guidance and control of the training masters.
The man would be reduced to an instrument of destruction, Avelyn's destruction.
Quintall's every thought would be focused on that singular purpose; Avelyn
Desbris would become the source of all his ills, the most-hated threat to St.-
Mere-Abelle.
Jojonah shuddered and walked away, trying hard not to picture the scene
when Quintall finally caught up to Avelyn.
 The cave seemed a gigantic caricature of a king's throne room. A huge
dais, three steps up; centered the back wall, sporting a single obsidian throne
that two large men could sit in together without touching each other. Twin rows
of massive columns, each carved into the likeness of a giant warrior, lined the
room. Like the throne, they were formed of obsidian, with graceful but somehow
discordant lines swirling about them like the fibers of interlocking muscles.
The floor and walls were clear of the black rock, showing the normal dullish
gray of Aida's stone, and the single set of doors was made of bronze.
No torches burned within, the room's light coming from either side of the
great dais where a continual flow of lava issued from the back corner of the
wall and descended through holes in the floor, diving down into the tunnels of
Aida, then reaching out along the mountain's black arms, engulfing more and,
more of the Barbacan.
Small indeed did Ubba Banrock and Ulg Tik'narn, powrie chieftains from the
distant Julianthes, and Gothra, the goblin king, seem in that tremendous room.
Even Maiyer Dek of the fomorian giants felt small and insignificant, eyeing the
statue-columns as if they would come alive and surround him, dwarfing his
sixteen-foot height. And Maiyer Dek, among the largest of his giant kind, was
not accustomed to being dwarfed.
Still, even if all twenty of the columns, and a dozen more besides,
surrounded the giant, it would not have been more imposing than the single
creature reclining on the throne. All four of the dactyl's guests felt that
imposing weight keenly. They were each among the most powerful of their
respective races, leaders of armies that numbered in the hundreds for the giant,
in the thousands for each of the powries, and in the tens of thousands for the
goblin. They were the darkness of Corona, the bringers of misery, and yet, they
seemed pitiful, groveling things before the great dactyl, mere shadows of this
infinitely darker being.
Goblins and giants often aligned, but both races traditionally hated the
powries almost as much as they hated the humans.
Except on those occasions when the dactyl was awake. Except at those times
when the darker forces bound them together in singular purpose. There could be
no struggles for power among the mortal leaders of the various races when the
dactyl sat on its obsidian throne.
"We are not four armies," the dactyl roared at them suddenly, and Gothra
nearly fell over from the sheer weight of the resonating voice. "Nor three, if
the powries consider their respective forces to be allied. We are one army, one
force, one purpose!" The demon leaped from its throne and tossed a small item, a
fabric patch, gray in color and with the black image of the dactyl sewn in. "Go
out and begin the work on these," the demon ordered.
Maiyer Dek was first to inspect the patch. "My warriors are not stitch
women," the fomorian leader began, but as soon as the words left Maiyer Dek's
mouth, the dactyl leaped down to stand before the giant, and seemed to grow. A
feral growl escaped the demon's lips as its hand shot out, slapping the behemoth
across the face with enough force to knock Maiyer Dek to the floor. Then the
dactyl began a more insidious attack, a mental barrage of images of torture and
agony, and Maiyer Dek, the proud and strong leader, the strongest mortal
creature in all the Barbacan, whimpered pitifully and squirmed about on the
floor, begging for mercy.
"Every soldier in my army shall wear such an emblem," the dactyl decreed.
"In my army! And you," the beast said to Maiyer Dek, reaching down and easily
lifting the massive giant to its feet. "Bring to me a score and four of your
finest warriors to serve as my house guard."
And so the meetings went, through the days. The demon dactyl had been
awake for several years, watching, feeling every slaughter of humans in the
Wilderlands, tasting the blood of every corpse into which a powrie dipped its
infamous cap, hearing the screams of sailors and passengers as each scuttled
ship went under the swells of the merciless Mirianic. The darkness had grown;
the humans had become ever weaker. Now the creature saw the time to organize its
forces fully; to begin its unified attacks.
Terranen Dinoniel was dust in the earth; the dactyl meant to win this
time.
To the twenty-four giants Maiyer Dek brought in, the dactyl presented
suits of armor, demon-forged in the twin lava flows of the throne room, full
plated, thick and strong. And the dactyl made even finer protection for its four
chieftains, great magical bracers, studded with spikes, that would protect the
wearer from the blows of any weapon. Among the three evil races, none had earned
any reputation of loyalty or honor, but now, with the bracers, the dactyl could
hold faith that its four chosen generals would survive the not unexpected
treachery of their underlings.
And those ranks were considerable indeed. Outside the cave, on the tree-
covered slopes of Aida, thousands of goblins, powries, and giants milled about
their respective camps, glancing up the southern face to the gaping hole that
marked the main entrance to the demon's lair. All three camps were between the
mountain's newest "arms," two black streaks of cooling lava, red-tipped as the
stuff continued its slow roll from the bowels of the mountain, reaching out,
southeast and southwest, as if they were extensions of the demon's own reach.
There was no sign of tree or brush within those black lines; all life had been
snuffed out beneath the darkness, burned away by the fires, and covered by the
cooling lava. Even those creatures closest to the center of the area between the
arms felt the residual heat, and on that shimmering air was brought the tingles
of promised power, the itchy anxiety to go out and kill.
All for the dactyl.

"What is your name?"

"Quintall."
The man groaned as the whip struck him again, tearing a red line across
his back.
"Your name?"
"Quintall!"
The whip cracked.
"You are not Quintall!" De'Unnero screamed in his face. "What is your
name?"
"Quin --" He hadn't even gotten the word out before the whip, handled
expertly by the tenth-year immaculate, ripped all sounds from his body.
Up on the balcony, unseen by the victim and his pair of torturers, Master
Jojonah sighed and shook his head. This man was tough, admirably so, and Jojonah
feared he would die from the beatings before he would relinquish his identity.
"Fear not," came a voice behind him, that of Father Abbot Markwart, "The
treatises do not lie. The technique is proven."
Jojonah didn't really doubt that -- he just wondered why in the name of
God such a technique had ever been developed!
"Desperation breeds dark work," the Father Abbot remarked, coming to
Jojonah's side just as the whip cracked again. "I find this as distasteful as do
you, but what are we to do? Master Siherton's body confirms our fears. We know
the tricks Avelyn used to escape, and his cache of magic stones is considerable.
Are we to allow him to run free to the detriment, perhaps even the downfall, of
our Order?"
"Of course not, Father Abbot," Master Jojonah replied.
"No living monk in St.-Mere-Abelle knows Avelyn Desbris better than
Quintall," Father Abbot Markwart continued. "He is the perfect choice."
As executioner, Jojonah thought.
 "As the retriever of what is rightfully ours," the Father Abbot said,
reading Jojonah's thoughts so clearly that the master turned to regard him
closely, Jojonah honestly wondering if Markwart was using some magic to peek
into his mind.
"Quintall will serve as an extension of the church, an instrument of our
justice," Father Abbot Markwart said grimly, more determination in his normally
quivering old voice than Jojonah had ever heard before. The master understood
the man's desperation, despite the fact that Avelyn's crimes and subsequent
desertion were not without precedent. Nor did the stolen stones present any real
danger to the Abellican Order; Jojonah knew that twice the number Avelyn had
taken were sold at fairly regular auctions, that the powers of those stones
possessed by merchants and noblemen far outweighed the cache Avelyn held. The
only concern any in St.-Mere-Abelle's hierarchy held about the stolen stones was
for the giant amethyst crystal, and that only because it was a stone whose magic
they had not yet deciphered. So foolish Avelyn wasn't really any serious threat
to the abbey or to the Order. But that wasn't the point, wasn't the source of
the Father Abbot's desperation. Markwart would be dead soon, taken by that
greatest enemy: time. And he did not desire to leave behind any legacy of
failure=including the existence of the renegade Avelyn.
"We will put him on Avelyn's trail very soon," the Father Abbot remarked.
"Unless he continues to resist," Master Jojonah dared to say.
Markwart issued a coughing laugh. "The techniques are proven: the lack of
sleep, of food, the rewards and punishments exerted by the eager young masters.
Quintall's concepts of right and wrong, of duty and punishment, have been
systematically replaced by the tenets given him at times of reward. He is a
creature of singular purpose. Pity him, but pity Avelyn Desbris even more." With
that, Markwart walked away.
Jojonah watched him go, shuddering at the sheer coldness of the man's
aura. His attention was caught by yet another crack of the whip.
"What is your name?" De'Unnero demanded.
"Quin . . . "
The man hesitated; even from the balcony, Master Jojonah sensed they were
near a breakthrough.
De'Unnero started to prompt the tortured man again, but he stopped, and
Jojonah recognized that the young master had seen a change in Quintall's
demeanor, a strange light in the man's eyes, perhaps. Jojonah leaned over the
rail, listening to every inflection, every whisper.
"Brother Justice," the battered man replied.
Master Jojonah settled back on his heels. He still wasn't wholly convinced
that he agreed with the technique -- or the purpose -- of Quintall's training,
but he had to admit that it seemed effective.

CHAPTER 26
Bradwarden

"Is it fear that inspires them? Is it jealousy? Or is it something more sublime,

some inner voice telling them that they and I are not of similar ilk? They do
not know, of course, of my days with the Touel'alfar, but certainly it is
evident to them, as it is to me, that they and I do not share the same
perspective."
Elbryan slumped back in the chair, musing over his own words. He put the
tips of his fingers together and shifted his hands in front of his face,
allowing 'his gaze to drift from the mirror.
When he looked back, the specter of Uncle Mather remained, passively and
patiently standing in the mirror's depths.
 "Belli'mar Juraviel warned me that it would be like this," Elbryan went
on. "And, in truth, it seems perfectly logical. The folk of the Wilderlands
frontier necessarily huddle together. Their fear isolates them, and they often
cannot distinguish friend from foe.
"So it is concerning me whenever I venture into the Howling Sheila. They
do not understand me -- my ways and my knowledge, and most of all, my duty --
and thus they fear me. Yes, Uncle Mather, it must be fear, for what have I that
the folk of Dundalis should envy? By their measures, I am poorer by far."
The young man chuckled and ran his hand through his light brown hair.
"Their measures," he muttered again, and he couldn't help but feel sorry for the
folk of Dundalis, of Weedy Meadow and End-o'-the-World, huddled ever in their
cabins. It was true enough that they enjoyed some amenities Elbryan did not:
soft bedding, solid water basins, stored food: But the ranger had two things far
more valuable, by his way of thinking, two things that he would not trade for
all the treasures of all the kingdoms of Corona.
"Freedom and duty, Uncle Mather," he said firmly. "I draw no lines of
property, because those lines serve as barriers both ways. And, in the end, it
is a sense of accomplishment, of purpose, and not the wealth attained by such
accomplishment, that equates to fulfillment and happiness.
"And so I walk my watch. And so I accept the barbs and open chiding. I
take faith in what I am doing, in my sense of purpose, for I, above all others,
understand the consequence of failure."
But I am alone, the young man thought privately, not yet ready to admit
the truth aloud. He sat back again for a long moment, then braced his hands on
the arms of his chair, preparing to leave.
He felt a soft and subtle vibration. Music?
He knew it was music, though it seemed too soft, too much in the
background for him to actually hear it. Rather, Elbryan felt it in his bones, a
gentle, delicate sound, sweet as an elvish harp, melodic as Lady Dasslerond's
voice.
He looked at the mirror, at the distant image, and sensed a calm there.
Elbryan went outside his cave immediately; expecting the music to be
louder. It wasn't; it hovered on the edge of his perceptions, whatever way he
turned. But it was there. Something was there.
And Uncle Mather wanted him to find it.
He had planned to go to Weedy Meadow that day, then move on with the
setting sun to the west, a circuit of End-o'-the-World. Now he could not go, for
this subtle music, though Elbryan sensed it was not threatening, was surely
intriguing. Had the elves come to visit? Then another thought nagged at the
young man, a notion that he had heard this song before, though he could not
place it..
The ranger spent the better part of the morning searching out the
direction of the quiet notes. He used all his training, all his tools, focusing
his senses one at a time in each direction, on every plant and every animal,
seeking some hint of the source. Finally, he came upon a set of tracks.
A single large horse, he decided, unshod and walking at an easy pace.
There were indeed wild horses in the area, some perhaps that had escaped the
tragedy at Dundalis, others that had run off from caravans, and still others
whose roots in the region were older than those of the human settlers. They were
not numerous, and surely skittish, though Elbryan had entertained the notion of
breaking one.
He soon came to believe that this would not be his chance, though, for as
he followed the clear trail, he came to the conclusion that he was following,
too, the source of the music. Thus, Elbryan believed, the horse was obviously
ridden.
 That thought didn't slow the ranger; it only intrigued him even more.
Someone had come into his domain, someone not of the villages, for if it was one
of the villagers, then this horse would likely have been shod.
Elbryan skipped down one tree-covered hillside, into a narrow vale and to
the edge of a rushing river. He crossed with some difficulty, but had no trouble
regaining the trail on the other side, for the rider was making no effort to
conceal his tracks. Elbryan closed steadily. Soon he could make out the actual
notes of a wind instrument, he noted, and he searched his memory once again, for
he was certain that he had heard that peculiar, haunting sound before. He
remembered, then, the instrument, piped by a merchant on the occasion of
Elbryan's tenth birthday, a curious thing, a leather bag and a series of pipes -
- a bagpipe, it was appropriately named.
The ranger moved swiftly and silently over a series of rolling hills. Then
he stopped, suddenly, as the music stopped. Elbryan peered out around a tree.
There, standing higher on the hill amidst a tangled grove of birch and low
brush, stood a tall man, much taller than Elbryan, even considering the ranger's
deceivingly low perspective. He had black, bushy hair and a tight beard. He was
naked, at least from the belly up, with a powerful upper body, muscles clearly
defined, and an arched back. He held the pipes under one arm, down low, his song
finished.
"Well, ranger, are ye liking the way I fill me chanter and drones?" he
asked, a wide, white smile across his face.
Elbryan crouched lower, though he was obviously seen. He could hardly
believe that this man had noted his approach or that this man knew his title!
"And it took ye long enough to find me," the man bellowed. "Not that ye
would have had I not piped for yer tracking!"
"And who are you?" the ranger called.
"Bradwarden the Piper," the man answered proudly. "Bradwarden the
Woodsman. Bradwarden the Pine Father. Bradwarden the Horse Tender. Bradwarden
the ..."
He stopped as Elbryan came out from behind the tree, the ranger rightly
sensing that this introduction could go on for some time. "I am called
Nightbird," he said, though he figured that this man somehow already knew that.
The tall man nodded, smiling still. "Elbryan Wyndon," he added, and
Elbryan nodded, then stared dumbfoundedly when he considered the implications of
that long-lost name. To everyone in Dundalis with the exception of Belster
O'Comely, Elbryan was known only by the name the elves had given to him.
"Might be that the animals telled me," Bradwarden remarked. "I'm smarter
than I look, not to. doubt, and older than ye'd guess. Might be the animals,
might be the plants." Bradwarden stopped and offered an exaggerated wink that
Elbryan, still a fair distance down the hill, saw clearly. "Might be yer uncle."
The ranger rocked back on his heels, unable to find even the words to ask
the obvious questions. He was wary, though not afraid, and he continued up the
hill, testing every step before he shifted his weight, as if he expected the
place to be trapped.
"Ye should've killed the three," the piper went on.
Elbryan shrugged, not understanding.
"Paulson and his cronies," the tall man went on. "Nothing but trouble. I'd
been thinking o' killing them meself, when I seen an animal chewing off its leg
in one o' their wicked catchers."
Elbryan started to respond that he had eliminated the cruel traps, but the
words were stuck in his throat. As he came around the low brush, he noted the
hind quarters of a horse, noted that the man was mounted: As he came around
another step, he saw that that was not the case, that the man, and no mount, had
been the source of the tracks.
For Elbryan, Nightbird, who had battled fomorian giants and goblins, who
had lived with the elves, the sight of a centaur was not completely unsettling.
It brought many questions, though, too many for poor Elbryan to begin to sort
out. And it brought, too, a memory of a piping song while he and Pony had stood
quiet on the slope outside of Dundalis, and he recalled, too, the stories of the
Forest Ghost, half man and half horse, that he had enjoyed as a child.
"They be nothing but trouble," Bradwarden remarked distastefully. "And
I'll kill them if one more scream of me animal friends reaches me ears!"
Elbryan didn't doubt the claim for a minute. There was something too
matter-of-fact about the centaur's tone, something. dispassionate, removed from
humanity. A shudder coursed the ranger's spine as he imagined what this powerful
beast, easily eight hundred pounds and cunning enough to completely avoid the
ranger for all these weeks, might do to Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk.
"Well, Elbryan the Nightbird, have ye an instrument to join with me
pipes?"
"How do you know of me?" the ranger demanded.
"Now if we're both for asking questions, then we're neither to be getting
any answers," Bradwarden scolded.
"Then you answer mine," the ranger demanded.
"But I already did," Bradwarden insisted. "Might be --"
"Might be that you are avoiding an answer," Elbryan interrupted.
"Ah, me little human laddie," Bradwarden said with that disarming smile,
though it surely seemed condescending coming from so far on high, "Ye'd not be
wanting me to give up me secrets, now would ye? What fun would ye have then?"
Elbryan relaxed and let down his guard. One of his friends had told
Bradwarden of him, he figured, one of the elves, most likely Juraviel. Either
that, Elbryan decided, or the centaur had eavesdropped when the young man was at
Oracle, for Bradwarden knew of Uncle Mather, and of the "little cave." In any
case, Elbryan felt in his heart that this was no enemy standing before him, and
he thought it more than mere coincidence that this very day, for the first time
since he had come to the region, he had hinted openly of his feelings of
loneliness.
"I trampled me a deer this morning," the centaur said suddenly. "Come
along for a meal then; I'll even let ye cook yer part!" With that, the centaur
took up his pipes and started a rousing military march,. thundering away on
powerful legs. Elbryan ran full out, constantly seeking out shortcuts in the
thick underbrush, just to keep pace.

They were not alike, very different in so many ways. True to his words,
Bradwarden allowed Elbryan to start a fire and cook his venison, while the
centaur ate his portion, nearly a quarter of the deer, raw.
"I do hate killing the damn things," the centaur said, ending his sentence
with a resounding belch. "So cute they be, and appealing to one of me body in
more ways than ye'd know. But fruits and berries are naught but ticklings. I'm
needing meat to fill me belly." He rubbed a hand across his stomach, at the
point where his human torso connected with the equine bottom half. "And I've
considerable belly to fill!"
Elbryan shook his head and smiled -- all the wider when Bradwarden belched
again, a great, thunderous burp.
"You have been in the region all the while?" Elbryan asked. "And I never
spotted you nor found any sign."
"Don't ye be too hard on yerself," the centaur replied. "I been in the
region longer than yer father's father was alive. And what might ye spot? A
hoofprint or me droppings? Ye'd think them both that of a horse, though if ye
inspected the droppings a bit more, ye'd find that me diet's not quite the same
as me horsie friends."
"And why would I look closer?" Elbryan asked, a sour expression on his
face.
"Dirty business, that," Bradwarden agreed.
 The ranger nodded, forgiving himself for missing the signs.
"Besides," Bradwarden went on, "I knew ye were coming, and ye didn't know
I was here. Unfair advantage, I'd call it, so don't ye go chastising yerself."
"How did ye -- you know?"
"A little birdie telled me," the centaur replied. "Sweet little thing that
says her name twice in a row."
Elbryan's face crinkled at the cryptic statement, but he just shook his
head, thinking that it really wasn't that important. Even as he started to ask a
question in a completely different direction, he remembered a certain friend who
fit the description. "Tuntun," he stated more than asked.
"Aye, that's the one." Bradwarden laughed. "She warned me not to expect
too much from ye."
"Indeed," the ranger said dryly.
"So I telled her that I'd be watching over ye," the centaur went on.
"Though I've come to know that ye don't need much watching."
"Then you are elf-friend," Elbryan said, hoping to find some common
ground.
"Elf-acquaintance, I'd be calling it," the centaur replied. "They're a
good sort for the wine, and they respect the animals and the trees, but they're
too much for giggling and too long on manners!" To accentuate his point, he let
fly the loudest belch Elbryan had ever heard. "Never heared an elf's belly-
thunder!"
Bradwarden laughed riotously, then hoisted a huge skin and poured an
amber-colored liquid -- Elbryan recognized it as boggle -- into his mouth, a
considerable amount splashing over his bearded face.
"Ye should've killed them," the centaur said suddenly, spraying more than
a little wine with each word.
Elbryan, thinking Bradwarden to be referring to the elves, crinkled his
brow incredulously.
"The three men, I mean," the centaur clarified. "Paulson, Cric, and . . .
what's the third, then? Weasel?"
"Chipmunk."
The centaur snorted. "Idiot," he muttered. "Ye should've killed them, all
three. No respect, I say, and nothing but trouble."
"Then why has Bradwarden tolerated them?" Elbryan asked. "They have been
in the area for some time, I would guess, considering their lodgings, and
obviously you knew of them."
The centaur nodded at the simple logic. "I been thinking of it," he
admitted. "But they didn't give me an excuse. And," he paused and offered a sly
wink, "don't ye fear, for I'm not overly fond o' human flesh."
"You have tasted it then?" Elbryan reasoned, not taking the bait.
Bradwarden belched again, and then he launched into a long speech about
the ills of humankind. Elbryan merely smiled and let the centaur ramble on and
on, considering the creature's words carefully so that he could discover many
hints about Bradwarden. Elbryan suspected, and would come to confirm over the
next few weeks, that he and the centaur were not so different in purpose.
He was a ranger, a guardian of the frontier humans and also of the forest
and its creatures. Bradwarden's mission, it seemed, was not so different, except
that the centaur was more concerned with the animals, particularly the wild
horses; he even hinted that he had given many of the wild horses their freedom,
since their human masters treated them badly. He hardly cared for the humans. He
had seen the raid on Dundalis years before, he confirmed for Elbryan, though the
worst he would admit of the tragedy was that it was "a pity."
Theirs became a tentative friendship, an offered smile and exchange of
news whenever the pair happened to be in the same area. For Elbryan, knowing
Bradwarden was a wonderful thing indeed. He found that when he next ventured to
Oracle, his previous feelings of loneliness did not follow him into, the cave.
CHAPTER 27
The Fat Prophet's Warning

News that she would soon be transferred to Pireth Vanguard far to the north, did
little to change Jill's sullen mood. By all reports, the weather was better on
the northern side of the Gulf of Corona, more alive, with brisk winds and a
greater change of the season. In Pireth Tulme, even the winter was one long gray
sheet of clouds and cold rain, differing from the summer only in terms of
temperature.
But Jill had settled into a routine here, akin to the continually gloomy
season. Each day seemed as the last, an existence of perpetual watch and work.
Seconds, minutes, and hours seemed to drag on endlessly, and yet, at the same
time, once the weeks had passed, it seemed as if they had flown away.
The incident at the Waylaid Traveler had brought some measure of
excitement, some break in the routine. Jill had taken the image of the mad friar
back with her, could hear his words still, and found in them a kinship to that
which lay in her own heart. There was no sense of duty or honor in Pireth Tulme,
none in the Kingsmen or the Coastpoint Guards, none in all of Honce-the-Bear,
she feared, or in all of wide Corona. And now this man, for speaking the truth
with a level of enthusiasm that exceeded even the orgies in Pireth Tulme, this
man, who would not be surprised by the tragedy that had touched young Jill's
life, who would have expected it and called for preparation against it, this
man, this holy prophet, was tagged "mad."
Jill sighed deeply every time she considered the man who had called
himself the hound of ill omen. His words rang so true in her ears, echoing in
the quiet lulls between the groans and shrieks that endlessly emanated from the
rooms behind her. The mad friar foresaw disaster; Jill only wished that he had
sung out his tune in a small frontier village several years ago.
Would the people of that village have heeded his warnings? Probably no
more so than the soldiers of Pireth Tulme, their party resuming from the moment
they returned from Tinson.
But despite her feelings, Jill kept her vigilant watch, day after day,
often long into the night. And she kept her honor and virtue, refusing to give
in to the temptations of the celebration, refusing to surrender to the
hopelessness -- and that precisely was the way Jill viewed the hedonism around
her. The soldiers of Pireth Tulme engaged in the revelry, the pleasures of the
flesh, to avoid noticing their empty souls. They had sacrificed their hearts, so
to speak, for their loins.
So be it. Jill stoically suffered the barbs of her comrades, particularly
from Warder Miklos Barmine, who seemed to covet her all the more since she would
not give in.
Perhaps Pireth Vanguard would be better, she sometimes dared to hope; but
inevitably, her wishes fell back on the dark reality that was life in Honce-the-
Bear in God's Year 824.
It was a gray morning -- no surprise there -- with Jill on the wall,
seated between crenelations, her legs dangling over the two hundred-foot drop,
her gaze on the dreamy mist that hung over Horseshoe Bay. Pireth Tulme was
especially quiet after a night of tremendous drinking, a night which Jill had
spent on the tower roof, quietly tucked under the beam of the fortress' lone
catapult, her blanket tight about her.
She kept her senses tuned totally to the present, thinking of nothing but
the rocky pillars standing like quiet sentinels in the foggy bay, the continual
lap of the ebb tide waves against the rocks so far below, the occasional bleat
of a sheep in the sloping field on the other side of the fortress.
And of the square sail that was drifting her way through the gray mist.
 She scrambled to her feet and leaned out over the battlement, peering hard
out to sea. It was indeed a sail, moving toward Pireth Tulme and neither in nor
out of the Gulf of Corona. Jill's first instinct was to find some way to warn
the obviously wayward craft. The fortress did have a signal barrel, a cask of
volatile ingredients -- though it hadn't been used in so many years that Jill
feared it wouldn't even burn brightly -- that was designed for signaling the
larger fortress of Kingsmen some dozen miles inland, close beside the catapult.
Jill realized that she wouldn't likely rouse enough help to get the barrel up in
the air in time, and so she began waving her arms and calling out loudly,
warning the ship's crew of the rocks and the impending disaster.
How Jill's mouth dropped open in shock when the vessel responded with the
swish of its own catapult, a huge rock smashing against the cliff face some
thirty feet or so below her!
It was exactly the situation for which the young soldier had trained all
these years, just as Jill had imagined it might happen. And yet, for some
reason, it seemed all too unreal for Jill. She stood there another long moment,
perfectly stunned.
She noted then that the vessel was not alone, but was moving in accord
with other craft, low to the water. One -- at least one -- had already gone by
Pireth Tulme, making for the beach of Horseshoe Bay, and two flanked the sailing
ship on the right, a third on its left.
A second ball soared in, this one soaring high over the fortress wall, and
over the back wall as well, bouncing down the green field.
Jill cried out at the top of her lungs, then again a moment later, the
ships moving ever closer, when she heard no response. She could see the activity
on the deck of the sailing ship now, small forms darting this way and that,
tacking hard to put the large caravel in between the bay's many sentry stones.
She noted their red berets.
"Powries," she muttered under her breath. She had no time to wonder where
they could have stolen or captured the ship; she cried out again, then turned to
view the tower door.
There should have been a second sentry there, the relaying voice to the
soldiers within. Jill shook her head, her short shock of blond hair bouncing
about. Frustration boiled in the young woman, mingling with desperation. Another
shot came thundering in, this one scoring a hit on Pireth Tulme's front wall,
taking down some stones.
Jill ran along the wall, angling for the door. She noted the bay as she
went, saw that the low craft was nearing the beach and that another was already
there, its hatch open and dozens of redcapped dwarves pouring onto the shell-
strewn sand!
Yet another shot came in as Jill grabbed the heavy door's latch and pulled
it wide, this missile not of stone, nor pitch, but a jumble of dozens of wide-
flying grapnels.
"Oh, damn," she sputtered; seeing many of the hooks gaining a firm hold on
the walls. She screamed into the tower then, calling for all hands to the walls,
warning of powries in the bay.
Then she ran, drawing her sword, cursing at every step. They had been
caught unaware; she noted no allies had yet exited the tower even as she got
back to the front wall. Likely, half the soldiers either didn't believe that
call or were simply too drunk to heed it, and the other half probably couldn't
even find their damned weapons!
The ropes were tight from the ship to the wall, with lines of dwarves on
each, moving steadily with surprising strength, hanging under, hands and ankles
locked about the cord. Jill first tried to dislodge the grapnel, but found that
it was too tightly secured, with too much weight on the heavy line. Then she
went at the line ferociously, hacking and chopping, chipping her sword from one
ill-aimed blow, the blade ringing off the stone wall. The ropes were thick and
strong, and Jill knew then that she could not cut them all down, could not cut
more than one or two down before the evil powries began gaining the wall.
"Hurry!" she cried, glancing back to the open tower door.
Finally, Miklos Barmine wandered out, rubbing his eyes, blinking
repeatedly as if the light, though the day was dim, stung him profoundly. He
started to call out to Jill, to ask her what all the shouting was about, but he
stopped, as he noted the woman at work on the heavy rope.
Another man came up behind the warder. "To the walls! To the walls!"
Barmine cried desperately, and the man disappeared again into the blackness of
the tower, crying out for his comrades.
A final hack from Jill sent the rope flying free, half a dozen powries
splashing down hard into the cold waters. Jill ran to the next line but moved
right past it, seeing that a dwarf was nearly to the wall some distance down.
She got to the spot first, slashing the powrie hard as it tried to scramble to
the stone. The creature grabbed on stubbornly, but Jill hit it again, right
across the face, and it fell away, shrieking, to its doom.
Jill went to work on the rope. Soldiers were coming from the `tower by
this point, but powries were coming over the front wall. Jill wasn't halfway
through the heavy cord when she had to stop and run to fight another of the
dwarves as it pulled itself onto the parapet. The creature drew a small sword
but too late to parry the woman's first savage attack, Jill's sword slashing
across the dwarf's eyes, blinding it. The dwarf countered viciously, but Jill
had already stepped beside it, then behind it, and when the powrie finished its
wild swinging, coming back to full defensive posture, Jill locked one arm over
its shoulder, her other under its crotch, and lifted and twisted, sending it
plummeting from the wall. She didn't even have time to slice once at that
particular rope, though, for another dwarf was already running her way, hooting
and howling, whipping a cudgel about in the air before it.
Charging soldiers met the red-capped dwarves all along the wall, battling
fiercely. Jill saw a pair of dwarves go flying over, saw a man slump to his
knees, hands clutching a mortal chest wound.
Then she was fighting again, hopping back from the swing of that nasty
cudgel -- she saw more than a few spikes protruding from its wide end. On she
came with a snarl, stabbing straight ahead with her sword, then, when that
attack was neatly deflected, kicking her foot out beneath the sweep of the
cudgel, connecting solidly with the dwarf's belly.
The powrie didn't even flinch, came right back to the offensive with one,
two, and then a third swiping attack.
Jill was backing steadily, but realized that she would soon run out of
room, for she sensed that another powrie was fast coming in at her back. She
started ahead a step, then turned about abruptly, dropping to one knee and
lunging ahead, her free hand catching the second dwarf's swinging sword arm, her
own sword driving deep into its chest.
Jill came up in a short run, bowling the wounded powrie away, then she
pivoted again and came in hard, moving too close for the cudgel to score a solid
hit and accepting the weakened blow in exchange for her own attack, a stab into
the dwarf's throat.
Breathing hard, the woman surveyed the scene.
They could not win. The Coastpoint Guards of Pireth Tulme were fighting
well, but they were badly outnumbered and they had lost their one advantage: the
walls. If they had been prepared, if they had been alert, then most of the
powrie lines would have been cut before the dwarves ever gained the wall. If the
soldiers had drilled for such an attack, then their defenses would have been
coordinated, then the signal barrel would already be in the air, spinning high
and far for reinforcements. Jill did see that a detachment of six soldiers was
at the catapult, three working the levers, three desperately trying to hold a
handful of powries at bay. She should get to them, she realized, but she
understood, too, that there was no chance of that. Fighting was general all
along the wall, more and more powries pouring in, and another group, those from
the two barrelboats that had gone into Horseshoe Bay, screaming wildly and
charging up the sloping field behind the fortress.
Pireth Tulme was lost.
Jill saw Warder Miklos Barmine shouting commands from the wall near the
tower, powries swarming all about him. He took a vicious hit, then another, but
responded with a slash of his own, knocking one powrie from the wall. One of
Jill's female comrades came to the tower door then, but she was swept away by a
host of bloody caps as they charged in.
Barmine continued to scream, though his words soon became but grunts and
howls of agony. He was bloodied in a dozen place and took hit after hit, though
he stubbornly continued to swing that sword.
Then Jill lost sight of him, finding herself facing another dwarf. This
one came in hard and, thinking that it had the woman by surprise, launched a
wild sidelong swing. Jill dodged easily, then kicked out behind the flying
weapon, just nicking the powrie on the back but solidly enough so the
overbalanced dwarf fell from the parapet eight feet to the ground below.
Another was quick to take its place, snapping off a series of thrusts with
its short sword. Jill managed to glance back toward the tower, saw the host of
powries flooding in, saw Barmine kneeling, his face, his arms, all his body
covered in blood.
Spurred by the gruesome sight, she attacked fiercely. Up went her sword,
cutting across left to right, then back again, then another strong backhand,
each swing sounding with the ring of metal on metal. She shifted her right foot
forward with the last stroke, then turned her blade and came straight ahead,
driving the powrie back. But another dwarf was behind it to bolster the defense,
and another behind that. Jill heard the dying scream of a soldier to her rear
and fully expected that she would soon be overwhelmed.
She started forward, then leaped atop the wall, hopping from high point to
high point, once over the surprised powrie's stabbing sword. She outdistanced
all three with a few long strides, moving to the far corner of the front wall.
There was yet another rope secured at that point, the last dwarf on it barely
five feet from the wall.
Jill glanced back at the carnage. Many powries were down, but more
remained, and each of the still-standing soldiers was surrounded, battling
desperately. Barmine was kneeling but offering no resistance, a powrie wiping
its beret across his face.
Jill winced as the dwarf lifted its cap, up high and in the same motion,
slammed its spiked cudgel into the dying warder's face.
She had seen enough.
She could have taken out the dwarf on the rope, but doing so would have
allowed the three pursuing her to catch her. Jill sheathed her sword instead,
pulled her belt off, and leaped out from the wall, beyond the climbing dwarf.
She caught the rope with one hand, barely, and hung on with all her strength,
two hundred feet of empty air below her.
The powrie immediately reversed direction, deftly turning about on the
rope with sure, strong grips. Its three companions, with typical powrie loyalty,
went to work at once on the grapnel and rope, caring not at all if they dropped
a comrade along with the dangerous woman.
Jill had no time for a fight. She kicked out to the side, trying to keep
the dwarf at bay, but her main focus was on getting her belt, held fast in her
other hand, up over the rope. She looped it up on one try, but lost her grip on
the rope and started to tumble.
Her free hand somehow caught hold of the other end of the belt. She was
holding both ends now, hanging lower, and then she was sliding away from her
enemy, sliding fast into the mist, toward the ship, which was holding steady
more than a hundred feet from shore.
The other end of the rope was fixed to the yard of the mainmast. There
were many powries on that deck, though none had, as yet, spotted her. She
figured she'd let go as she came over the prow, in the hope that she would land
on deck clear enough for her to roll a few times to absorb the impact. If she
could get across the deck to the stern catapult or more particularly, to the
cauldrons of pitch and the firepit near the catapult, then she might be able to
cause more than a little havoc.
Her plan was moot, as it turned out, for as Jill approached the front of
the craft, the rope gave way, and suddenly her descent was much sharper than her
forward momentum. She let out a scream, thinking that she would slam headlong
into the ship's prow.
Luck was with her and she hit the cold sea short of the ship. She came up
sputtering, her mouth full of water, her ears still filled with the sound of
dying men ringing down from the fortress walls. Anger welled within her,
directed at both the powries and her own comrades. Had they been prepared, this
disaster would not have befallen them. Had they heeded their own code of
conduct, the powries would have been repulsed.
She had lost her sword in the fall, but Jill didn't care. Feral growls
escaped her lips as she started to swim around the vessel, moving all the faster
for fear that her limbs would soon be too numb to propel her. She got around to
the stern and found the anchor line, a heavy rope down from the port side. Her
arms aching from cold and weariness, she grabbed hold and pulled herself up the
ten fit to the rail. She peeked over even as the catapult fired again, a ball of
flaming pitch soaring up over Pireth Tulme's wall. Jill noted that the missile
was far more likely to burn a host of powries than any human, but the dwarves
hardly seemed to care, howling with glee as they loaded the next ball.
Three of them had the ball, cradled in a heavy blanket, up above their
heads near the basket when Jill hit them with a flying body block. They fell
away toward the taffrail, but could not let go of their load. Over the rail the
pitch ball went, taking the three powries with it.
A fourth was on Jill in a moment, grabbing for her throat. She couldn't
believe the weight of the diminutive thing! Nor the strength! In an instant, the
powrie had her on her back and was choking her hard.
She tried desperately to break its grip, locked her fingers about its
thumbs and turned them outward.
She might as well have been pulling against iron shackles.
Jill changed tactics and began slugging the dwarf in the face instead,
then poking for its eyes. It held on tight and even tried to bite her fingers.
Soon Jill's hands were flapping inconsequentially at the powrie's barrel-
like torso, her strength fast deserting her. She would die as Pireth Tulme died,
she realized, again silently cursing the unpreparedness, the slovenly men and
women to whom she had been forced to entrust her life. She would die, not of any
fault of her own, but because the Coastpoint Guards had grown weak.
Her hands flailed wildly; darkness crept into the edges of her vision. One
hand banged against the powrie's solid waists against a metal ball above the
dwarf's belt.
The hilt of a dagger.
Jill had struck the dwarf four times before it realized that it was being
stabbed. With a howl, it finally let go, scrambling about to evade the jabbing
dagger.
Jill wounded it again, between its flailing arms and right in its chest,
and then again, higher, in its throat. The dwarf rolled away, but Jill could
hardly move to follow. She lay there for what seemed like minutes, then finally
found the strength to come up. to her elbows.
The powrie was near the rail, facedown.
 Jill took in another blessed gulp of air and staggered to her feet. She
turned to the catapult, its arm low and ready to fire, then looked at the vats
of burning pitch, wondering what mischief she might cause.
The powrie slammed her hard from behind, driving her into the bent beam.
Jill came about, dagger slashing, cutting a line across the dwarf's face, just
inches above the garish cut she had put in its throat. The dwarf fell back a
couple of steps, but came on again. . .
Jill dropped to her knees and lowered her shoulder, accepting the impact.
She curled her legs under her and lifted the dwarf high, stepping fast and
shoving with all her strength, putting the creature into the catapult basket.
Jill rolled away immediately, falling to the side, grabbing at the release pin
and pulling hard.
The powrie was almost out of the basket when the catapult fired, launching
the dwarf in a wild, spinning flight straight up, arms and legs out wide.
Many other dwarves heard the scream, took note of the curious missile, and
turned to the stern deck; Jill was out of time. She kicked over the pitch
barrels, spilling one onto the capstan that held the anchor line and knocking
another down the stairs to the lower main deck. Then she turned to the taffrail,
thinking her only escape to be the cold water.
Again sheer luck saved her, for she found a boat hanging from the stern.
She had it falling free in an instant, then, with powries scrambling up to the
stern deck, with fires growing all about her on the capstan and on the catapult,
she leaped out as far as she could, taking care to avoid the burning pitch that
was floating in the water and the three dwarves, bobbing low, barely keeping
their heads above the waves. They made for the boat as did Jill, the woman
overtaking one and easily dispatching it with her borrowed dagger.
Powries weren't so tough in the water, she noted as she closed on the
second. She swam right by that one, realizing if she delayed, the third would
get to the boat before her. She caught that last floundering dwarf, stabbing it
hard on the shoulder, then swimming right by it, grabbed desperately for the
small craft.
A crossbow quarrel skimmed the water right beside her head.
Jill worked to get behind the boat, to use it as a barrier against the
powrie archers on the deck. She knew that the angle was all wrong, though, that
they were too high above her, the boat too close, and that they would get fairly
clear shots no matter where she moved.
And she knew from the profound numbness that was creeping into her limbs
that she had to get out of the water, and quickly.
The groan of wood alerted her to the powries' newest problem: She dared to
peer over the small boat's rail, and saw that the ship's anchor line had burned
through, and the ship, caught on a swell, had swung hard about. Suddenly, the
archers had more on their minds than the woman in the water.
Jill started to climb into the boat, but had to stop and turn to strike
again at the struggling powrie. Finally she was in the boat, setting the oars,
then pulling away with all her strength, the third powrie frantically trying to
catch up.
It got near enough for Jill to slam it on the head with one of the oars.

CHAPTER 28
Siblings

She dragged herself onto the beach, battered, cold, and angry. She looked back
at the small boat, even then being dashed against the rocks, tossed about by the
powerful surf. She had drifted all through the rest of that fateful day, all
through the night and the better part of the next morning as well. She had meant
to go right from the battle to the nearest spot she could find to land the boat,
to then run off and find some help, and lead the charge back to Pireth Tulme.
The powrie ship was barely out of sight when her wounds overtook her, pains and
aches she didn't even realize she had suffered. The heat of battle had left her
body and unconsciousness had descended over her like some great hunting bird,
wings out wide to block the light of day.
She had awakened that night, drifting somewhere in the gulf, praying that
the currents had not pushed her out into the open Mirianic. Luck was with her,
though, for the coastline remained in sight, towering black mountains marking
the southern horizon. It had taken Jill hours to manage to row the craft near
shore and then to find some place where she could put in. She had settled for a
narrow inlet, but as soon as she entered, she found that many sharp rocks were
in the water, lurking right below the surface. Jill worked the small boat hard,
but understood the futility. So she shed her red Coastpoint jacket and her heavy
boots and went over the side, fighting the undertow every inch of the way
through the icy water.
The rocks took her boat.
She didn't recognize any landmarks but figured she must be somewhere west
of Pireth Tulme on the north coast of the Mantis Arm. Her suspicions were
confirmed when she moved inland, found a road, and then, an hour of walking
later, a signpost pointing the way, three miles hence, to Macomber.
Jill found herself circumventing the town and approaching it from the west, not
from the east the way any stragglers fleeing Pireth Tulme would. She tried to
straighten her still-damp clothes, but realized that she would be conspicuous
indeed to any, walking as she was without boots, and without the dirtied,
calloused feet of a peasant woman. And though she was not wearing the telltale
red jacket, a woman dressed in a simple white shirt, tan pants, and bare feet
was not a common sight. Jill wished that she had a cloak, at least, to gather
closely about her.
She got more than a few curious looks from the townsfolk as she passed the
fairly sizable settlement of more than three score buildings, some two stories
high. Some folk pointed, all whispered, more than a few turned their shoulders
and scurried away, and it seemed to the young woman that they were on edge.
Perhaps word of the disaster had preceded her.
These suspicions were bolstered by the snatches of conversation Jill
caught, words of a contingent of Kingsmen riding hard to the east. She nodded to
herself; she should go out and join the force, should go to Pireth Tulme to
avenge --
The thought hit Jill like a cold slap. To avenge what? Her comrades? The
letch Miklos Barmine? Gofflaw, whom she'd imagined killing several times
herself?
She found a tavern, its sign too worn for her even to make out the name,
though the image of a foaming mug was clear enough. Before she entered, a
familiar voice, raised in dire warning, assaulted her.
"What demons do we invite into our midst?" the man inside cried, and Jill
knew before she saw him that he was surely standing atop a table, one finger
pointed high into the air.
She went in expecting a brewing row, but found instead that the mad friar,
this time, had a fairly attentive audience.
And a large one; there had to be forty people inside, filling the tavern
from wall to wall. Jill sifted through the crowd to get to the bar, started to
order a mug of ale, but then realized she had no money. She turned instead, put
her elbows on the bar, and watched the monk and, more particularly, the
reactions, of his audience.
She heard whispers of a fight, of goblins, some said, though others more
accurately named the enemy powries. Estimates of the enemy force ranged from a
thousand warriors to a thousand ships full of warriors.
 Jill wanted to tell them that it was but one captured sailing vessel and
no more than five barrelboats, but she kept quiet, fearing to reveal too much of
herself and also thinking it would do these folk good to be afraid.
The mad friar apparently shared her feelings, for his speech became more
dire, more frantic, as if he envisioned an army of monsters marching down the
road, right to the border of Macomber.
The fever reached a critical point, and then, all of a sudden, it broke.
The barkeep came around the bar with a heavy club, moving pointedly for the fat
monk. "Enough from you," he warned, waving his weapon. "Whatever happened is the
business of the Kingsmen, and not for the folk of Macomber!"
"All the world must prepare!" the fat man retorted, throwing his arms out
wide, inviting the people to join.
But it was too late; he had pushed past the fear and into the realm of
anger, and when the barkeep called for assistance, the man found no shortage of
volunteers.
The mad friar put up a terrific fight, tossing men about, howling about
his "preparedness training!" In the end, though, predictably, the monk was
sailing out the door to land unceremoniously in the street.
Jill was beside him at once, on one knee as he sorted himself out. He
reached into a pocket of his robe and produced a small flask, popping the top
and sucking a huge swig. He did well to stifle his belch and looked at Jill as
if embarrassed.
"Potion of courage," he explained dryly. "Ho, ho, what!"
Jill regarded him sourly, then rose and offered an arm. "You are
consistent," she chided.
The friar looked at her more closely. He knew he had seen her before, but
he could not place her. "Have we met?" he asked finally.
"Once," Jill said, "in a place not so far away."
"I would not forget so pretty a face," the friar insisted.
Jill was too bedraggled to blush or even to care. "Perhaps if I were still
wearing my red jacket," she said, though she could hardly believe she had just
admitted her position to this man.
He paused for a long moment, then his face brightened in recognition --
and then it darkened immediately as he realized the implications. "Y-your home,"
he stuttered, as if not knowing which direction to go. "Pireth Tulme."
"Never would I call Pireth Tulme my home," Jill retorted: The mad friar
started to speak again, but she stopped him with an upraised hand. "I was
there," she said grimly. "I saw."
"The rumors?"
"Powries," she confirmed. "Pireth Tulme is no more."
The friar held out his flask, but Jill refused. He nodded and put it back
under the folds of his weathered robes, his expression more serious. "Come with
me," he bade her. "I have an ear for what you might need to say."
Jill considered the offer for a long moment, then moved away with the man
to a room he had rented in a small inn on the outskirts of Macomber. He expected
her to speak of desertion, but of course, her tale, spoken simply and
truthfully, was far different. She saw respect mounting in the man's brown eyes
and knew that he was a friend, knew that he would not turn her in to the
military authorities, that he held as little respect for them as did she.
When she finished, when she explained that she was glad again to hear his
voice and could now appreciate his dire warnings, the friar smiled comfortingly
and put his hand over hers.
"I am Brother Avelyn Desbris, formerly of St.-Mere-Abelle," he confided,
and Jill understood she was probably the first person he had told his true name
in a long, long time. "It would seem that we are both dispossessed."
"Disappointed would be a better word," Jill replied.
 A dark cloud passed over Avelyn's face. He nodded. "Disappointed indeed,"
he said softly.
"I have told you my tale," Jill prompted.
It came out in a burst of emotion Avelyn had not known since that night he
had cried for his dead mother. He told Jill much -- more than he would have ever
believed he could confide -- holding back only the specifics of the Ring Stones,
the secret island, the method and fatal result of his escape, and the fact that
he carried with him a stolen cache of powerful magic. Those things did not seem
paramount to Avelyn, anyway, not when weighed against the tragedy of the
Windrunner, the loss of his dear Dansally Comerwick.
"She told you her name," Jill put in quietly, and Avelyn's brown eyes
misted at the realization that this woman could understand the significance of
that.
"But you have not," Avelyn said to her.
"Jill," she answered after a short. hesitation.
"Just Jill," she assured him.
"Well, Just Jill," Brother Avelyn said with a widening smile, "it would
seem we are two lost lambs."
"Yes, mad brother Avelyn Desbris," she replied in the same singsong voice,
"two lost lambs in a forest of wolves."
"Pity the wolves, then!" Avelyn cried, "Ho, ho, what!"
They shared laughter, a relief of tension both of them so desperately
needed Jill for her recent trials and Avelyn because he had spoken openly at
last of his dark past, had relic the candles about those desperate images and
feelings that had driven him out on the road.
"Piety, dignity, poverty," the monk said distastefully when he had caught
his breath.
"The credo of the Abellican Church," Jill replied.
"The lie," Avelyn retorted. "I saw little piety beyond simple rituals,
found little dignity in murder, and poverty is not a thing the masters of St.-
Mere-Abelle tolerate." He gave a snort, but Jill knew she had him beaten on this
point.
"Ever vigilant, ever watchful," she recited dryly, and Avelyn recognized
her words as the motto of the Coastpoint Guards. "Tell that to the powries!"
They laughed again, all the louder, using the very sound of mirth as a
shield against tears.
Jill spent the night in Avelyn's room; the monk, of course, acting the
part of a perfect gentlemen. He considered the tale he had told her, his life's
story, and then looked to regard himself, the extra hundred pounds, the battered
appearance.
"Ah, Jill," he lamented. "You should have seen me in my idealistic youth.
What a different man I was then, before I saw the terrible truth of the world."
His thoughts hung on those words for a long, long while, and then it
struck him that if he were to truly call this woman his friend, he would have to
search hard for a part of himself that he had thought long lost. To be a friend
to Jill, to be a proper companion to anyone, would mean recovering some of that
idealism, some of that belief that the world was not so dark and terrible and
that, with effort, it might get even better.
"Yes," the monk whispered over the sleeping woman, "we'll find our way
together."
The next morning, they purchased some supplies, including a short sword,
boots, and a warm cloak for Jill, and then they walked out of Macomber together,
down the road to the west, ignoring the stares and whispers, feeling somehow as
if they shared a secret and a wisdom the rest of the world, fools all, could
never comprehend.
That bond alone held Jill together with Brother Avelyn over the first
weeks of their journey; they were siblings, Avelyn insisted, two alone against
the encroaching darkness. Jill accepted a large part of that argument, but
hardly considered herself brother to the mad friar. The man drank almost
constantly, and whatever town they entered, Avelyn found some way to get into a
fight, often brutal. So it was in the town of Dusberry along the Masur Delaval
halfway between Amvoy and Ursal. Avelyn was in the tavern, as usual, standing
atop a table, spouting warnings and curses. Jill came in just as the fight broke
out, two dozen men swinging at the closest body, not bothering to ask if it was
enemy or ally. In these general rows, as opposed to the occasions when all in
the bar teamed up against the monk, Avelyn more than held his ground. The huge
bear of a man tossed his attackers with ease, punched and twisted deftly,
hollering "Ho, ho, what!" every time he felled another.
Jill came in hard and fast, simply to defend herself as she made her way
to her comrade. She, too, could handle the drunken townsfolk without much
effort, turning easily as one man lunged for her, walking right past his
lumbering reach, then kicking back hard on his instep, sending him down to the
floor.
"Must you always?" she asked when she at last reached Avelyn's side.
The monk replied with a wide grin. Then he quickly brushed Jill aside with
his right hand, straightening the man who was charging in at her back with a
stiff left jab, then knocking him flying with a heavy right cross.
"Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn boomed. "The town will be the better for it!"
He started away, but Jill kicked him hard in the rump. He turned to her,
wounded emotionally at least, but she would not back down, pointing resolutely
at the door.
It wasn't until they had exited the tavern, the fight raging still, that
Avelyn suddenly stopped and looked at his beautiful companion a most curious
expression on his face. Not even blinking, he reached under his robes, then
quickly retracted his hand.
It was covered in blood.
"My dear Jill," Avelyn said, "I do believe I have been stabbed." His legs
started to buckle under him, but Jill caught him and guided him off the main
road to a porch in a nearby alley. She thought to leave him there, to run off
and find Dusberry's healer -- every small town had one -- but Avelyn caught her
by the arm and would not let her go.
Then she saw it. Brother Avelyn produced a grayish-black stone, its polish
so deep that it seemed almost liquid, so smooth that Jill felt as if she could
slip right into it. Her gaze lingered on the stone for a long while, the young
woman sensing there was something extraordinary, something magical about it.
"I need to borrow some of your strength, my friend," Avelyn said, "else I
shall soon perish."
Jill, on her knees before him, nodded, eager to help in any way.
Avelyn wasn't satisfied with that response, though, fearing that Jill did
not understand the true measure of what he needed from her. "We shall become
one," he said, his voice growing ever more breathless, "more intimate than
anything you have ever known. Are you prepared for such a joining?"
"I hardly think you are in condition --"
"Not physically, oh no, not that!" Avelyn quickly corrected, wheezing out
a laugh despite his obvious agony. "Spiritually."
Jill rocked back on her heels, regarding Avelyn curiously. A physical
union she could not abide -- not with this man, not with Connor! But this
cryptic talk of a spiritual joining did not seem so imposing. "Do what you
must," she begged.
Avelyn regarded her a while longer, then finally nodded. He closed his
eyes and began chanting softly, falling into the magic of the powerful hematite.
Jill likewise closed her eyes, listening to the inflections of the chant.
 Soon she no longer heard them, but rather felt them as if they were
emanating from within her own body. And then she felt the intrusion, the spirit
of Avelyn making its way into her.
Just his body was there, she realized, as again his spirit sought entry.
Jill tried to break down her defenses, knew logically that if she did not let
Avelyn have his way, he would surely die. She knew, too, that she had come to
trust this man. He was a friend, of like mind and, on most points, morals.
She focused all her strength, trying vainly to invite the man in, trying
vainly to facilitate the joining.
Then she was screaming, not aloud -- or perhaps aloud, she was too
consumed to know. Avelyn came closer, so much closer. Too close. They seemed to
be as one; Jill caught images of the brown and gray walls of a monastery, of an
island covered with lush vegetation and trees with wide-fingered branches. Then
she felt as if she was falling, looked into the face of a hawkish man who was
falling beside her.
And then she felt the pain, of a stab wound, sharp and hot. It was not on
her; she knew that. But it was right there beside her, pulling at her life
force, sucking her into its depths. She resisted, tried to push Avelyn away, but
it was too late now. They were joined and the monk fed as a vampire would feed.
Jill's eyes popped wide in horror and she jumped, startled, to find that
the monk was still reclining in front of her.
The pain became another sensation, hot and private. Too private and yet
shared. Jill instinctively recoiled, but she had nowhere to hide. She had let
Avelyn in, and now she must suffer the experience.
For Avelyn, the union of spirits proved something wondrous. Even as he
explored this unfamiliar use of hematite, he gave to Jill his understanding of
the stories -- and it was so easy! He felt her response immediately, Jill
passing her energy through the hematite into Avelyn's wounded body as smoothly
as any fifth-year student of St.-Mere-Abelle. It struck Avelyn profoundly then
that the monks might be teaching the usage of the stones in a terribly wrong
manner, that if the instruction came in the spiritual mode, through the use of
hematite, the students might progress much faster. Jill, he knew, would come
away from this with more than a casual understanding of how to use the magic
stones, and she was strong! Avelyn felt that. With practice, and more joinings,
she could quickly rival all but the most powerful stone users of St.-Mere-Abelle
-- and all because of this simple technique.
But dark images began to wash over Avelyn, scenes of men running amok with
stone power. He dismissed the notion of training stone use through this method
as quickly as he had entertained it, for he realized that the discipline
involved in handling such power could not be taught in any easy way. Suddenly he
felt guilty for what he had just given this woman he hardly knew, felt as if he
had somehow betrayed God, giving a blessing without first asking for any
guidance or sacrifice.
It was over in a few moments, with Avelyn back in his nearly healed body.
Jill turned away, could not look upon the man.
"I am sorry," Avelyn said to her, his voice weary but all trace of
physical pain gone. "You have saved my life."
Jill fought away the black wings of her past, the barrier that had for so
long protected her against intimacy, the barrier that Avelyn had not crashed
through but had somehow circumvented. With great effort, she managed to turn
back and face him.
He was sitting upright now, smiling sheepishly, the cloud of pain and
death gone from his plump features. "I am --" he started to apologize again, but
Jill put a finger over his lips to silence him. She stood up and offered her
hand, helping the portly monk to his feet.
Then Jill started down the road, like all the other roads that led them
out of all the other towns. She offered not a word as they walked long into the
night, replaying those terrible moments of their joining over and over in her
mind, constantly telling herself that it had been necessary, and trying to
fathom the images that Avelyn had given her, images, no doubt, from the monk's
past. There was something else, though, some gift that Avelyn had left behind.
Jill had never even heard of the magic stones before, let alone used one, but
now she felt as if she could handle them fairly well, as if their secrets had
been unlocked to her in the blink of an eye. On this point, as well, she kept
quiet, not knowing yet whether Avelyn had given her a gift or a curse.
Avelyn, too, did nothing to break the silence. He, too, had much to
contemplate: the feelings he had viewed within the tortured woman and the scenes
that the joining had shown him images of a slaughter in a small town, probably
somewhere in or near the Wilderlands. And Avelyn had a name for the place, a
name the woman could not remember. He inquired privately about it in the next
town the pair ventured through, and then, as the monk gained more and more
knowledge, he began to steer Jill generally north.
It was with mixed feelings that Jill followed Brother Avelyn into
Palmaris. The woman desperately wanted to seek out Graevis and Pettibwa, to tell
them she was all right, to hug them and fall comfortably onto Pettibwa's soft
bosom. All of that was, of course, tempered by her realization that she was, in
effect, a deserter. A meeting with Connor could prove disastrous, and if Grady
happened to spot her or learn of her visit, the greedy man would likely set the
Kingsmen on her trail, if for no other reason than to ensure his inheritance.
Jill did go out one night, while Avelyn went down into the common room of
the inn they had chosen, spouting his diatribes. She made her way silently
across town, taking up a spot in the alleyway across from Fellowship Way. She
sat there as the minutes became an hour, taking some comfort in the fact that
many patrons came and went; apparently her little disaster hadn't ruined the
Chilichunk name. Sometime later, Pettibwa came out of the inn, rubbing her hands
on her apron, wiping the sweat from her brow, smiling, always smiling, as she
went about the business of her life.
Jill's heart tugged at her to go out and embrace the woman, to run to
Pettibwa as she would have run to her natural mother.
Something within, fear for Pettibwa, perhaps, stopped her though.
And then, quickly, the plump woman was gone, back into the bustle of the
Way.
Jill left the alley hurriedly, thinking to go back to her room across
town. Somehow she wound up on the back roof of the Way, in her private spot,
basking one final time in those familiar feelings. Up here, she was, in effect,
in Pettibwa's arms. Up here, Jill was Cat-the-Stray again, a younger girl in a
world less complicated, with feelings less confusing.
She spent all night watching the stars, the gentle drift of Sheila, the
occasional lazy cloud.
She returned to her room as dawn was breaking over Palmaris, to find
Avelyn snoring loudly, his breath smelling of ale and more potent drinks, one
eye blackened.
They remained in Palmaris, a city large enough to suffer the likes of the
mad friar, for several more days, but Jill never ventured near Fellowship Way
again.

CHAPTER 29
Of Singular Purpose

They gave him but two stones: a smooth yellow-hued sunstone and a cabochon
garnet, a carbuncle, the deepest shade of red. The former, among the most valued
stones at St.-Mere-Abelle, could protect the man from almost any stone magic,
could kill all magic in an entire area and render all spells useless within it,
and the latter, the seeking stone, could show him the way to magic. Thus was
Brother Justice equipped to find and destroy Avelyn.
He set out from the abbey one dark and dreary morning, riding an ash-gray
mare, not swift of hoof but long in heart. The horse could go for many hours,
and Brother Justice, so focused on the completion of his vital task, pushed her
to her limits.
He traveled first to Youmaneff, the village where Avelyn Desbris had been
born, some three hundred miles from St.-Mere-Abelle. He went to the small
cemetery on the hill outside the place first, found the stone raised in memory
of Annalisa Desbris, and noted with some satisfaction that the name of Jayson
Desbris had not been added.
"You have come to tell me of my son Avelyn?" the old man asked as soon as
Brother Justice, his brown robes marking him as an Abellican monk, knocked at
his door.
The simple question, asked so very sincerely, put the monk on edge.
"Is he dead?" Jayson asked fearfully.
"Should he be?" Brother Justice retorted.
The old man blinked many times, then shook his. head. "Forgive my lack of
manners," he bade the visitor, moving to the side of the door and sweeping his
hand, an invitation for the monk to enter. Brother Justice did so, his head
bowed to hide his cruel smile.
"I had only assumed that a visit from a man of St.-Mere-Abelle would be to
give tidings of Avelyn," Jayson explained. "And since the visit was not from
Avelyn --"
"Where is Avelyn?" The monk's tone was flat and cold, a snapping question
that sent Jayson back on his heels and had the hair on his neck standing on end.
"You would know better than I," the old man replied quietly. "Is he not at
the monastery?"
"You know of his long journey?" the monk asked sharply.
Jayson shook his head, and Brother Justice sensed that he was truly
confused.
"I last saw my son in the fall of God's Year 816," Jayson explained, "when
I handed him into the care of St.-Mere-Abelle, into the arms of God."
Brother Justice found he believed every word, and that fact only made him
all the more angry. He had hoped for information from Jayson Desbris, a
direction to take that he might end this foul business quickly and efficiently.
But Avelyn had apparently not come home, or at least, had not made contact with
his father. Now the monk was torn, not knowing whether he should kill the old
man, erasing any trace of his pursuit of Avelyn should he come home, or simply
brush away any sense of misgivings Jayson might hold, putting the visit in a
more congenial light.
That would not work, Brother Justice realized, for if Avelyn did come home
and learn of a visit from a monk, then he would know that this had been no
social call. Still, to slay the old man might make things even more complicated,
for then he would be marked by the local officials and perhaps even hunted.
There was one other way.
"I fear to tell you that your son is dead," he said with as much
conviction as he could muster -- and that was not considerable.
Jayson leaned heavily on a table, and seemed suddenly very much older
indeed.
"He fell from the abbey walls," Brother Justice went on, "into All Saints
Bay. We have not recovered his body."
"Then why did you come here with questions as to his whereabouts?" came a
sharp question from the side of the room. A large man, perhaps ten years older
than Brother Justice, stormed into the room, his dark brown eyes filled with
outrage.
 Brother Justice hardly paid the man any heed -- at least outwardly. He
kept his focus on Jayson and tried to cover his previous questions. "Avelyn has
taken his long journey," the monk said quietly, and that reference, put in terms
of a spiritual flight, slowed the mounting anger in Avelyn's brother Tenegrid.
"He is with God now," Brother Justice finished.
Tenegrid came right up to the monk, glaring down at the shorter man. "But
you never found his body," he reasoned.
"The fall is too great," Brother Justice said quietly. He had his hands in
front of him, buried within his voluminous sleeves. They were not clasped,
rather, his right hand was cupped, fingers set tight, forearm muscles twitching
from the strain.
"Be gone from this house!" Tenegrid commanded. "Foul messenger who comes
and taunts with questions before speaking the truth!" It was an obviously
misplaced anger, an expression of pain and with no real resentment aimed at
Brother Justice. Tenegrid was wounded as much by the sight of his grief-stricken
father as by the news of his brother's death. Brother Justice understood this,
though he hardly sympathized.
Still, the vicious monk would have let it go, but then Tenegrid made a
dangerous mistake.
"Be gone!" he repeated, and he put his hand on the stocky man's strong
shoulder and started to push him toward the door. Faster than his eyes could
follow, Brother Justice's cupped hand snapped up and out to the right, striking
Tenegrid squarely across the throat. The man fell away a couple of staggering
steps, grabbed the back of a chair for support, and then fell over anyway, the
chair tumbling down about him.
It took considerable willpower for Brother Justice, his blood so hot for
the kill, to turn away for the door. He wanted to vent his rage on this brother
of foul Avelyn, wanted to rip the man's head right off before his father's eyes
and then slowly murder the father as well. But that would not be prudent, would
likely make his course to Avelyn, the grandest prize of all, much more
difficult.
"We of St.-Mere-Abelle are sorry for your loss," he said to Jayson
Desbris.
The old man incredulously looked up from his son, who was still lying on
the floor holding his wounded throat and gasping for breath, to see the monk
depart.
The one obvious lead fruitless, Brother Justice had to turn to his magic,
to the carbuncle, a stone also called Dragon Sight for its ability to detect
things magical. He rode out of Youmaneff
shortly thereafter, finding no magical emanations in or about the pitiful
village. This was worse than a cold trail, Brother Justice realized, for this
was no trail at all.
The world seemed wide indeed.
His first contact with magic came a few days later on the open road when
he happened by a merchant caravan. One of the merchants had a stone -- and
admitted as much when Brother Justice cornered him alone inside his covered
carriage. It was merely a diamond chip, useful for saving the candles and oil on
long journeys.
The monk was soon again back on the road, riding steadily and making a
general course to the north. The largest city in Honce-the-Bear was Ursal, so
that, he figured, might be a good place to start. Brother Justice knew the
pitfalls, though. Many merchants in Ursal likely possessed stones; the monastery
was not averse to selling them. His garnet would lead him down a hundred
different avenues, to one dead end after another. But still, considering the
limited range of the Dragon Sight stone -- it could not locate magic more than a
few hundred feet away -- Brother Justice would have more of a chance in a
confined city than in the vast open spaces of central and northern Honce-the-
Bear.
He wasn't a third of the way to Ursal, though, when his course took a
different direction, when the trail suddenly heated up.
It happened purely by chance in a hamlet too small even to have a name, a
place a certain "mad friar" had passed through only a few weeks before on his
way to Dusberry on the Masur Delaval. The reaction of the inhabitants to Brother
Justice's brown robes tipped the monk off to the fact that he was not the first
Abellican monk to come through this place recently. People sighed when he walked
in, seemed fearful at first, and then, as if recognizing that he was a different
man than they had originally feared, they sighed again, this time in obvious
relief.
When questioned, they were all too ready to give an account of the "mad
friar" who had visited their village, offering portents of doom and starting a
wild fight in the tavern. One man showed Brother Justice a broken arm, still far
from healed.
"Not good business for the church, I'm thinking," the man offered, "to
have one o' yer own wandering about hurting folks!"
"More than a few folk have turned away from St. Gwendolyn of the Sea since
the fight," the bartender of the tavern added.
"This monk was of St. Gwendolyn?" Brother Justice asked, recognizing the
name of the monastery, a secluded fortress nestled high on a rocky bluff,
perhaps two days' ride to the east.
The man with the broken arm shrugged noncommittally, then turned to the
bartender, who likewise had no answers.
"He wore robes akin to yer own," the bartender remarked.
Brother Justice wanted desperately to inquire if the man carried any
magical stones, if there was any magic about him at all, but he realized that
these two would not likely have held back such information if they had it, and
he didn't want to tip his hand too much to anyone, fearing that Avelyn would be
all the more difficult to find if he realized he was being hunted.
So the monk got a description, and though it was not an exact image of the
Avelyn Desbris he had known, it was enough to hold his curiosity. So, suddenly,
he had a description, a title -- "the mad friar" -- and a direction, the folk of
the hamlet uniformly insisting the monk had gone down the western road with his
companion, a beautiful young woman of about twenty years, close beside him.
The trail was warm, and it led Brother Justice from town to town, across
the countryside to Dusberry on the Masur Delaval. He picked up even more clues
as he went, for in one skirmish in a bar this mad friar had, apparently sent a
pair of men flying with a blue shock.
Graphite.
Less than a month after he had set out from the tiny hamlet, confident
that he was steadily gaining on this rogue monk, Brother Justice walked through
the fortified gates of Palmaris.
Only two short days later, Brother Justice used his Dragon Sight stone to
detect the use of strong magic, coming from the northeastern quarter of the
city, the high ground of rich houses overlooking the Masur Delaval. Convinced
that his prey was in reach, a lion staring down the face of an old and weary
zebra, the monk rushed through the streets, through the crowded marketplace,
knocking over more than one surprised person. He was a bit apprehensive when he
got to the gates of the indicated house, a huge structure of imported materials:
smooth white marble from the south, dark wooden beams from the Timberlands, and
an assortment of garden artwork that could only have come from the galleries of
the finest sculptors in Ursal. Brother Justice's first thought was that Avelyn
had hired on with this obviously wealthy merchant, perhaps to perform some
necessary feat with the stones, perhaps merely as a court jester. The fierce
monk tried to hold hard to that hope, for, logically, he could not dismiss his
doubts. Would Avelyn, who held the stones as most sacred, rent out their powers?
Only in emergency, Brother Justice realized, and since Avelyn could not have
been in Palmaris for more than a couple of weeks, this was not likely a familiar
house to him.
That left another possibility, one the monk did not wish to entertain. He
went over the gate easily, lighting down in the front yard without a whisper of
sound. There were many hedges and high bushes; he could get to the door without
drawing notice from within or from the wide street behind him.
He understood his error before he had gone a dozen paces when he heard the
growl of a sentry dog.
Brother Justice spat a curse and saw the animal, a massive, muscled beast,
black and brown with a huge bony skull and wide jaw full of gleaming white
teeth. The dog hesitated only a moment, taking full measure of the man, then
came on in a dead run, lips curled back to show Brother Justice those awful
teeth with every stride.
The monk crouched low, bent his legs, and tightened his muscles, measuring
the dog's swift approach. The beast came in fast and hard, but just as it was
about to leap for the man's throat, Brother Justice confused it by jumping high
into the air, curling his legs under him.
The dog skidded to a stop, its momentum too great for it to effectively
change its angle of attack, and then Brother Justice came down hard on its back,
kicking both his legs straight down as he descended.
The dog's legs splayed wide; it gave one yelp, then lay still, its back
broken, its lungs collapsing.
The monk, convinced that the animal could not cry out any further
warnings, walked on toward the house. He decided to take a straightforward
approach and went right to the front door, knocking hard with the large brass
knocker, another imported and sculpted item, he knew, this one in the shape of a
leering, stretched face.
As soon as he saw the handle begin to turn, the monk lifted one foot and
went into a spin, timing it perfectly so that his foot connected with the door
just as it began to open. The man on the other side, a servant, flew to the
floor as the door swung wide and Brother Justice entered.
"Your master?" the monk asked flatly.
The stunned man stammered, taking too long for the impatient monk's
comfort.
"Your master?" Brother Justice demanded again, grabbing the man by the
collar and lifting him to his feet.
"He is indisposed," the man replied, at which Brother Justice slapped him
hard across the face, then clutched him on the neck, a grip that left no doubt
in the man's mind that this intruder could rip out his throat with hardly an
effort. The man pointed toward a door across the foyer.
Brother Justice dragged him along. He let go before he reached the door,
though, tossing the poor servant to the floor as he felt the first waves of
intrusion, magical intrusion, an attack aimed his way and corning from within
the room.
The monk quickly took out his yellow sunstone, falling immediately into
its defensive magic. The attack was fairly strongthough he would have expected
more from powerful Brother Avelyn -- but the sunstone was among the most potent
of all the stones of St.-Mere-Abelle, its defenses even more complete than the
chrysoberyl more commonly used, and its power was more tightly focused than any
other, a simple shield against magic. In an instant, a yellowish glow surrounded
the monk, and the waves of intrusion were halted.
The monk snarled in defiance and kicked at the heavy door. It jolted but
did not open. He kicked again and again, repeatedly slamming the lock, until
finally, the wood of the jamb gave way, the door flying wide to reveal a portly
man, richly dressed, standing behind a large oaken desk, a loaded crossbow in
hand.
"You have one shot," Brother Justice said evenly, striding directly into
the room, his eyes locked on those of the merchant. "One shot, and if it does
not kill me, I will torture you to a slow death."
The man's hands trembled; Brother Justice knew that without even looking
at them. He saw the merchant flinch as a line of sweat rolled from his brow into
one eye, saw the man chewing his lip.
"Not another step!" the merchant said with all the courage he could
muster.
Brother Justice stopped and smiled wickedly. "Can you kill me?" he asked.
"Is this the end you desire?"
"I desire only to defend what is mine," the merchant replied.
"I am no enemy."
The merchant stared at him incredulously.
"I had thought you to be another," Brother Justice said calmly, turning
his back on the merchant to close the door as tightly as the shattered jamb
would allow. He sneered at the curious servants gathering in the hall to keep
them at bay. "I am hunting a dangerous fugitive, one who employs the magic of
the stones," he explained, turning back to the merchant, a disarming look on his
face. "I had not thought that any but he would be so powerful with the magic."
Brother Justice did well to hide his wicked grin as the crossbow slipped down.
"I am always ready to lend aid to those of St. Precious," the merchant
declared.
Brother Justice shook his head. "St.-Mere-Abelle," he corrected. "I have
traveled the breadth of Honce-the-Bear in my most vital quest. I had thought it
to be at its end. Forgive my entrance; my Father Abbot will reimburse you for
all the cost."
The merchant waved his hand, his face brightening at the mention of the
man. "How fares old Markwart?" he asked, his tone one of familiarity.
Again the monk restrained his feeling of outrage that this man -- this
simple, pitiful, wretched merchant could speak of Father Abbot Markwart as if he
were the man's equal. Obviously he had dealt with Markwart -- where else would
he have garnered so powerful a stone? -- but Brother Justice understood the
relationship between the merchants and the abbey far more clearly than did the
merchants. Father Abbot Markwart was always willing to take their money, but
never in exchange for honest respect.
"Perhaps, then, I can help you with your quest," the merchant offered.
"Ah, but where are my manners? I am Folo Dosindien, Dosey to my friends, to your
Father Abbot! You must be hungry or perhaps in need of a drink." He lifted his
hand and started to call out, but Brother Justice cut him short.
"I require nothing," he assured the merchant.
"Nothing but help in your search, perhaps," the man said teasingly.
The monk tilted his head, somewhat intrigued. The man had at least one
powerful stone -- he knew that and suspected it to be hematite. Many things
could be accomplished with such a stone.
"I seek a fellow monk," Brother Justice explained. "He is known as the mad
friar."
The merchant shrugged; the name obviously meant nothing to him. "He is in
Palmaris?"
"He came through, at least," the monk explained, "not more than two weeks
previous."
The merchant sat down behind his desk, his features tightening with
concentration. "If he travels, if he is an outlaw, then likely he would have
sought out the lowlier regions of the southern docks," he reasoned. He looked up
at the monk, his expression resigned. "Palmaris is a large place."
Brother Justice did not blink.
 "I have offered my name," the man prompted.
"I have no name to offer," replied Brother Justice, and the tension grew
once more, instantly emanating from the monk's cold stare.
Dosey cleared his throat." "Yes," he said. "I wish that I had more answers
to give to one of Markwart's underlings."
Brother Justice narrowed his eyes, not appreciating the sentiment, the way
the foolish merchant tried to dominate him by referring to his superior in such
familiar terms.
"But there is a place,", the merchant whispered, coming forward suddenly
in his chair, "where one might get answers. Answers to any question. in all the
world."
Brother Justice had no idea where this conversation was going, had no idea
what to make of the man's sudden, almost maniacal expression.
"But not until we have dined," Dosey said, falling back in his chair.
"Come, then, I will set for you a table unrivaled in Palmaris, that you might
return to St.-Mere-Abelle with kind words for Markwart's dear old merchant
friend."
Brother Justice played along, and, indeed, the merchant Dosey was not
exaggerating. His servants -- the man Brother Justice had dropped to the foyer
floor and three women, one undeniably beautiful -- brought in course after
course of the finest cuts of meat and the sweetest fruits. Juicy lamb and thick
cuts of venison buried in brown sauces and mushrooms, oranges that exploded in a
shower of juice as soon as the integrity of their peels was breached, and large,
round, yellow melons that the monk had never before seen but that were sweeter
than anything he had ever tasted.
He ate and he drank, neither to excess, and when the meal was over, some
two hours later, he again sat quietly and let the merchant guide the
conversation.
The man rambled on and on, telling mostly stories of his dealings with the
various monasteries of Honce-the-Bear, even with St. Brugalnard in faraway
Alpinador. Brother Justice knew that he was supposed to be impressed, and he
worked hard to pretend that he was as the minutes dragged on into yet another
hour. Dosey interrupted, his tales only for an occasional belch; so lost was he
in his own sense of importance that he hardly bothered to gauge the monk's
reaction. Brother Justice figured that the man was accustomed to dealing with
people in need of or with great desire for his wealth, and, thus, he could
ramble on and on to an attentive though captive, audience. Such were the
trappings of power that Dosey did not realize what an ultimate bore and
ridiculous buffoon he truly was.
But Brother Justice needed the merchant, as well, or at least it seemed
plausible that the man might aid the monk in his all-important quest. That alone
held the monk at the table long after the sun had set.
Finally, so suddenly that the surprise shook the monk from his almost
dreamlike state of boredom, Dosey announced that it was time to get some answers
and that these things were better done in the dark.
The mysterious tone of his voice set the monk on his guard, though, in
truth, Brother Justice really didn't expect much from the merchant. Perhaps the
fool Dosey would use his hematite to invade the bodies of several innkeepers
from the lowlier sections of the city, using their forms to inquire about the
mad friar.
The pair went back to Dosey's study, to the great oaken desk. Dosey had
his manservant retrieve a second chair, placing it at the desk's side, and then
he bade the monk to sit and relax.
"I could go," the merchant offered, and then he shook his head, as if not
liking that notion, almost as if he were afraid of that thought.
Brother Justice made no move at all to reply, no verbal or body language
to let the man know that he was even the least bit intrigued.
 "But perhaps you should see for yourself," the merchant went on, a wry
smile on his face as he spoke. "Would you like to go?" he asked.
"Go?"
"For your answers."
"I know not of this place of which you speak," Brother Justice admitted.
"You have a stone, that much I know."
"Oh, much more than a simple stone," Dosey teased. He reached under the
lapel of his fine gray jacket and produced a pin, a large broach, and held it
out for Brother Justice to see. Now the monk could not fully hide his interest.
The central stone of the broach was a hematite, as he had suspected, an oval of
liquid gray, deep and smooth. Encircling it, set in the yellow gold, were a
series of small, clear, round crystals. Brother Justice did not immediately
recognize them, for they might have been several different types, but he sensed
that they were indeed magical, in some way tied to the powers of the hematite.
"My own design," Dosey bragged. "The fun of the stones is in combining
their powers, is it not?"
The fun, Brother Justice silently echoed, hating this man and the
irreverence with which he spoke of something so sacred. "This broach presents a,
combination not known to me," the monk admitted.
"Simple clear-crystal quartz," Dosey explained, running his finger about
the large broach's edge. "For distant sight."
A stone of divining, Brother Justice then realized, and he was beginning
to catch on. With the clear quartz, a man could send his vision across the
miles; perhaps combining that with the spiritwalking of the hematite . . .
"With this, you can go to a place to find your answers," Dosey promised,
"a place that only I know of. The home of a friend, a powerful friend indeed,
one that would impress your Markwart, to be sure!"
Brother Justice hardly noted the familiar reference to the Father Abbot
this time, so caught up was he in the implications. His intrigue was fast
shifting to trepidation now, as he got the distinct feeling that he had stumbled
on to something potentially dangerous. He recalled Dosey's fearful expression
when he hinted that he would make the journey, a mixture, it seemed, of the
sheerest horror and the highest titillation. What manner of being could so
inspire such a reaction? What, then, lay at the end of this spirit journey?
A shudder coursed up the monk's spine. Perhaps the monastery should
reconsider its practice of selling stones to fools like Dosey.
The thought flew away in an instant, for this monk, this Brother Justice,
had been trained to be unable to hold long to any ill feelings, any questions at
all, concerning the decisions of his superiors.
"Go," Dosey bade him, handing over the broach. "Let the stone guide you.
It knows the way."
"Am I to possess the body of another?"
"The stone knows the way." It was spoken simply, calmly, and, somehow
wickedly. That part of Brother Justice, that small flicker of memory that
recalled his life as Quintall, recognized Dosey's expression as that of an older
boy pressing a youngster to mischief.
He took the broach, felt its power in his hand, eyeing Dosey cautiously
all the while. His physical body would be vulnerable while spirit-walking, he
knew, but he doubted that Dosey would strike against one of Markwart's
emissaries. Even if he did attack, Brother Justice, already using the hematite,
figured that he would have little trouble possessing the merchant's body. And
Dosey likely knew the same thing, and that understanding, the monk decided,
would give him the insurance he needed.
So Brother Justice sat back in the chair, closed his eyes, and let the
magic of the broach engulf him. He visualized the hematite as a dark liquid pool
and he waded in slowly, letting the physical world dissipate into gray
nothingness. Then his body and spirit were apart, two separate entities. The
monk looked about the room from this new perspective, but his eyes could not
remain fixed on anything but the clear stones surrounding that hematite. They
pulled at him as forcefully as anything he had ever felt, a compulsion too great
to ignore. Doubts about the wisdom of his choice, about the wisdom of selling
such powerful stones to fools, flapped up about him, flashes of dark wings that
beat at the will of the powerful monk.
He was sinking, ever sinking, into that crystal glare, away from the room,
away from his corporeal body and the fool Dosey.
And then he was flying, faster than thought, across the miles. Time and
distance warped. It seemed as if an hour went by, but then as if only a second
had passed; what appeared as an infinite plain was crossed by a single step. On
and on Brother Justice flew, north to the Timberlands, to the Wilderlands,
across great lakes and deep forests, and then to mountains, towering peaks.
So many times he thought he would collide with jags of stone only to watch
them rush under him at the last possible second. He had never imagined such an
attunement of stone magic, that these crystals could be so focused in their
divination. It was something dangerous and beyond his understanding -- and he
knew as much about the stones as any man alive, with, as far as he knew, the
exceptions of only Father Abbot Markwart and Avelyn Desbris!
He crossed the range into a huge, high valley, a great plateau ringed by
the towering mountains. Below him, massed like ants, were the campsites of
armies. He wanted to go lower, to distinguish the individual forms, to see what
force had gathered in such unbelievable numbers, but the compelling crystals
would not let him out of their grasp. He flew on above the plateau to a
singular, smoking mountain, its southern face tree covered, but with two black
arms reaching down, reaching out to encompass the gathered armies.
Brother Justice nearly swooned, his senses overwhelmed by the sheer speed
at which his spirit entered a series of connecting narrow tunnels. Every
breakneck turn jolted him, though his physical form was hundreds of miles away.
Every dip and sudden rise blurred his vision, scrambled his thoughts.
He came up fast on a pair of great bronze doors, inlaid with a myriad of
designs and symbols. They opened but a crack, and through that tiny space flew
his disembodied spirit into a huge chamber lined by stone columns that resembled
gigantic sculpted warriors. He soared through their twin lines, his attention
stolen as he approached the far end of the chamber, a raised dais, and a
creature whose strength was beyond anything Brother Justice had ever known,
whose emanations of power and of evil mocked life itself.
The flight stopped, leaving Brother Justice standing right before the
dais. He considered his own form, for normally spiritwalkers were invisible. Not
in here, though. The monk could see himself, as he appeared within his corporeal
trappings, except that he was a singular shade of gray and translucent, so that
he could look right through his form to see the gray stone beneath his feet.
But that spectacle couldn't hold Brother Justice's attention for any
length of time, not with this huge monstrosity leering at him from on high. What
monster was this? the monk wondered as he studied the reddish skin and black
eyes, the bat wigs, horns, and claws. What manifestation of hell had come to
walk the material world? What demon?
The questions spiraled into a singular line of thought, a singular fear
that threatened to break the monk's very mind. He knew! From his lessons, years
of religious training, years of his masters imparting the fears of that which
opposed their God.
He knew!
You have destroyed the fool Dosey, then, the creature telepathically
imparted to the monk, and have stolen his treasure. The instant that last
thought ended, Brother Justice felt an intrusion that he could not deny, a
sudden scouring of his brain, of his identity, his intentions. Sheer revulsion
saved him, catapulted his spirit out of that terrible place like a slingshot
snapping back through the tunnels, across the plateau, above the swarming
soldiers that he knew then were an army of evil, across the mountains and then
the forests, the lakes, careening all the way back to Palmaris, to the
merchant's study, and back into his body so suddenly that the physical form
nearly toppled over.
"Do you know now?" Dosey asked him even as his eyes blinked open.
Brother Justice looked into that maniacal expression and saw the result of
contact with such a creature clearly etched on Dosey's face. He wanted to shake
the man and ask him what he had done, what he had awakened -- but it was far
beyond that, Brother Justice realized before he ever uttered a word. The man had
passed the point of redemption and had perhaps awakened a dangerous curiosity in
the demon.
Up came the monk's hands, locking fast on Dosey's throat. Dosey grabbed at
the monk's wrists, tugging futilely, trying to cry for help, scream, anything.
The muscles on Brother Justice's arms stood taut and too strong to fight. The
monk drove the feeble merchant to his knees and held fast long after the
struggling stopped, long after the merchant's arms fell slack at his sides.
His mind whirling with outrage and fear, Brother Justice stalked about the
house, finding the servants and the merchant's family.
He left long after midnight, battling his confusion with a wall of sheer
anger. The broach was in his pocket, the house of Folo Dosindien was dead.

CHAPTER 30
Symphony

"I am at peace, a greater sense of belonging than I have ever known," the ranger
said at length after more than half an hour sitting in his wooden chair in the
darkness, staring at the barely perceptible mirror. He gave a chuckle at the
irony of his own words. "And yet, Uncle Mather, I count my current friends as
but two, and one of them is no more than a shadowy image, a specter that cannot
speak!"
Elbryan laughed again as he considered the preposterous illogic of it all.
"I belong here," he declared. "This area, these towns -- Dundalis, Weedy Meadow,
and End-o'-the-World -- are my towns, these folk, my folk, though they hardly
tolerate the sight of me. What is it then that gives me acceptance in this
place, a greater sense of peace and belonging than I knew among the Touel'alfar,
who became my friends, who cared for me much more deeply than any of the folk of
the three villages, than any but you and Bradwarden?"
He stared hard at the image at the edge of the dark mirror for a long
while, considering his words, seeking his answers.
"It is duty," Elbryan said finally. "It is the belief that here I am doing
something to better the world -- or at least my corner of the wide world. With
the elves, I felt a sense of personal growth, learning and training, perfecting
my skills, always moving toward something better. Here, I use those skills to
better the world, to protect those who need protection whether or not they
believe they need protection.
"So here I belong. Here I fit into a necessary niche and know that my
daily toils, my watchful eye, my rapport with the forest -- creatures and plants
--is surely valuable, if not appreciated."
Elbryan closed his eyes and kept them shut for a long moment, his mind
filling with the thoughts of the many duties left to him this day. He soon
realized that Uncle Mather would not be in the mirror when he again opened his
eyes, for the trance was broken. That was the way it always happened, the needs
of the day dispatching the spirit soon before the dawn, turning Elbryan's
thoughts from philosophical to pragmatic. He used the Oracle regularly now,
sometimes two or even three times in a week, and he never failed to bring up the
image of his relative, the ranger who had gone before him. He wondered often if
he might also find the image of Olwan in that mirror or of his mother or Pony,
perhaps.
Yes, Elbryan would like to converse with Pony, to see her again, to
remember that innocent time when patrolling was play and nightmares were not
real.
He left the small cave, crawling out past the large tree roots, with a
sincere smile on his face, rejuvenated and ready for the day's work, as always.
He was hoping to find Bradwarden, for the centaur, after weeks of Elbryan's
teasing, had at last promised him an archery contest. Perhaps Elbryan would make
his prize, should he win -- and he had no reason to believe that he would not --
an indenture of the centaur, forcing Bradwarden to accompany him on his coming
visit to the forest about the western village of End-o'-the-World.
First things first, the ranger told himself. He took up Hawkwing, removed
its feathered tip and its string, and went to a place he had claimed as his own,
a nearly treeless hillock much like the one he had frequented in Andur'Blough
Inninness, one that lifted him up into the heavens on starry nights and brought
him the first rays of dawn and the last rays of the sunset.
The ranger quickly removed his clothes, the grass feeling scratchy but not
unpleasant to his feet. He greeted the dawn with his dance, weaving the staff
about as he would wield a sword, stepping slowly, perfectly balanced, the moves
coming with hardly a thought, since the movement memories were ingrained deep
within his muscles. The sword-dance was perfected now, and there were no steps
to be added, no more difficult maneuvers, no increase in speed. These movements
alone would continue to heighten Elbryan's balance, his sense of control over
his body. In the half hour that it now took Elbryan to perform the dance, he
would put his body through every movement needed in battle, he would reinforce
in his muscles the memory of which action properly followed which.
Truly the ranger was a thing of beauty, moving with animal-like grace but
with human control. A combination of strength and agility, a balanced, thinking
warrior. The greatest gift of the Touel'alfar was his name, Nightbird, and all
the training that had come with it. The greatest gift of the elves was this
harmony the man had achieved, this joining of two philosophies, of two ways of
looking at the world, of two ways to do battle.
Sweat glistened in the morning light, beading and rolling about the man's
hard, sculpted form. For though he was not moving quickly, the energy required
to maintain the balance of the sword-dance was tremendous, often a working of
muscle against muscle or an isolation of a muscle group so completely that it
was worked to its limits.
When he was done, Elbryan gathered up his clothing and ran to a nearby
pond, diving into the chilly water without hesitation. A quick swim refreshed
him, and he dressed and went at once to his morning meal, then set off to find
the centaur.
To Elbryan's relief, Bradwarden was in the appointed area, though not
exactly in the spot where he had told Elbryan their contest would be held To
make things even easier for the tracking ranger, the centaur was playing his
pipes this morning, a haunting melody that seemed akin to the dawn, gentle and
rising, rising, until the notes burst forth as the rays of the sun, cresting the
long hill and spreading wide. Following that music, compelled by its notes,
Elbryan soon came upon the half-equine beast, standing amid a tumble of
boulders.
The centaur stopped his playing when he spotted his friend, his white
smile growing wide within his bushy black beard. "I feared ye would not have the
courage to show yer face!" Bradwarden roared.
"My face and my bow," the ranger replied, holding Hawkwing up before him.
"Aye, that elven stick," the centaur remarked. Bradwarden held aloft his
own bow then, the first time Elbryan had seen it, and he was truly astonished.
Mounted sidelong on a platform, the thing would have passed for a fair-sized
ballista!
"You throw arrows with a tree?" the ranger scoffed.
Bradwarden's smile didn't lessen a bit "Call 'em arrows," he said evenly,
placing his pipes on the ground and hoisting a quiver that would have passed for
a sleeping bag for Elbryan, with arrows each as long as the man was tall. "Call
'em spears. But if ye get hit by one, know that ye'll call 'em death!"
Elbryan didn't doubt that for a minute.
Bradwarden led the way out of the area to an open meadow upon which he had
placed a series of six targets; each a different distance from the appointed
line.
"We'll be starting close and working our way to the back," the centaur
explained. "First one to miss a target is the loser."
Elbryan considered the rules, so befitting the centaur's blunt style.
Normally in a test of archery, each contestant would be granted a specified
number of shots, with the best total score serving as the measure. With
Bradwarden, though, it was a simple challenge of hit or miss.
Elbryan stepped up and let fly first, confident that the first target, no
more than thirty paces would pose no difficulty. His arrow slapped into the
target near the bull's-eye, a straight, level shot.
Without a word of congratulations, Bradwarden lifted his monstrous bow and
drew back. "Ye only stung the giant," the centaur remarked, them let fly. His
great bolt thudded into the target near Elbryan's arrow and overturned the whole
three-legged thing. "Now," the centaur declared, "the beast is properly killed."
"Perhaps I should shoot first at each target," Elbryan said dryly.
The mighty centaur laughed heartily. "If ye don't," he agreed, "then ye'
ll be aiming high for the clouds and hoping yer bolt drops straight down on the
mark, don't ye doubt!"
Before the centaur had even finished, Elbryan's second arrow thudded dead
center into the next target, ten paces farther away than the first.
Bradwarden hit it as well, and again the target fell over:
They were up to the fifth target in no time, the first three having been
knocked flat, and the fourth still standing, for Bradwarden's great arrow,
though true in aim, had not pushed it all the way over. This fifth target, some
hundred yards away, was the first for which Elbryan had to elevate his shot. Not
much, though; so strong was Hawkwing that the arrow's flight was barely arched,
cutting a sure line through the gentle wind to strike perfectly.
The centaur, for the very first time, seemed honestly impressed. "Good
bow," he muttered, and then he took aim and let fly.
Elbryan clenched a fist, thinking himself victorious as he marked the flight.
Bradwarden's arrow did hit the target, though, barely catching hold in its outer
edge, as far to the left of center as
it could go.
Elbryan turned a wry gaze on the centaur. "A bit of luck," he remarked.
Bradwarden pawed hard at the ground. "Not so," he insisted in all
seriousness. "I aimed for the beast's weapon hand."
"Ah, but if it was left-handed . . ." the ranger replied without
hesitation.
Bradwarden's smile was gone. "Last shot," he said evenly. "Then we'll be
picking out farther trees to substitute for targets."
"Or leaves," Elbryan replied, and lifted his bow.
"A bit too much," the centaur said suddenly, and the ranger eased the
tension on his bowstring, having almost lost his concentration and the shot.
"Too much?"
"Too much faith in yerself," the centaur clarified. "Next, yell be wanting
to wager."
 Elbryan paused and thought hard on that line, then looked back to consider
the centaur's last shot, so near a miss. Or had it been planned that way? he had
to wonder. Was Bradwarden setting him up? Certainly the centaur was a fine
archer, but was he even better than Elbryan had recognized?
"Me pipes'll be needing a new bag," Bradwarden mused. "Not a difficult
chore, but a dirty one taking a hide."
"And if I win?" Elbryan asked. His eyes betrayed his idea, roaming to the
centaur's strong back.
Bradwarden started to laugh, as if the notion that Elbryan might win was
absurd. The centaur stopped abruptly, though, and glared hard at his human
companion. "I know ye're thinking ye might be riding me, but if ever ye try,
I'll be giving human flesh another taste."
"Just to End-o'-the-World," Elbryan clarified. "I wish to be there and
back in a hurry."
"Never!" the centaur declared. "Only a maiden I'd let ride, and then she'd
be letting me," he finished with a lewd wink.
Elbryan didn't even want to conjure the image.
"What, then?" he asked. "I'll wager against you, but the prize must be
named."
"I could make ye a real bow," the centaur chided.
"And I could put an arrow up your arse from a hundred paces," Elbryan
retorted.
"Big target," the huge centaur admitted. "But what might ye be needing, me
friend, not that ye've a chance at winning."
"I already told you," Elbryan replied. "I enjoy my walks, but I fear that
I need a faster method to cover the ground about the three towns."
"Ye'll never climb on me back."
"Do you lead the wild horses?" Elbryan asked, surprising the centaur.
"Not I," Bradwarden replied. "That's the work of another." A strange smile
came over the centaur, a strange expression as if he had found the solution to
some puzzle. "Aye," he said at length, "that'll be yer prize. If lightning hits
me arrow -- for that's the only way ye'll beat me -- I'll take ye to the one who
leads the wild herd. I'll take ye, mind ye, but then ye'll make yer own deals."
Elbryan realized that he was being duped, that this prize, in Bradwarden's
estimation, was more a punishment. The ranger felt the hairs on the back of his
neck standing up, felt a tingling of trepidation. Who might this leader of the
herd be to inspire such uncharacteristic respect from cocky Bradwarden? Along
with the realization came an undeniable sense of intrigue, however, and so the
ranger agreed.
Up came Hawkwing and off flew the arrow, striking hard on the far distant
target.
Bradwarden gave a grunt of respect, then let fly, his arrow, too, hitting
the mark.
"Three," said Elbryan, and he put up his bow three times in rapid
succession, each bolt flying unerringly.
Bradwarden followed and scored three hits.
"Fourth, fifth, sixth!" Elbryan cried, letting three more shots fly, the
first hitting the fourth target squarely, the second striking the fifth --
splitting Elbryan's previous shot on that target -- and the last zipping into
the final target, dead center.
The centaur sighed, beginning to understand that he had, for the first
time, possibly met his match in a human. He got the fourth target easily enough,
and then the fifth, but his shot at the last in line skipped off the top of the
target and flew away into the brush beyond the far edge of the meadow.
Elbryan smiled widely and clenched a fist. He looked up at Bradwarden and
found the centaur eyeing him with an expression he had not really seen from the
creature before: respect.
 "Ye've got yerself one dragon-killer of a bow, me friend," Bradwarden
offered. "And be sure that I've not seen a steadier hand."
"I had the best bowyer," Elbryan replied, "and the best tutors. None in
all the world can match the archery of the Touel'alfar."
Bradwarden snorted. "That's because the skinny little folks don't dare to
get close to an enemy!" he replied. "Come on then, let us go and get our arrows,
and then I'll show ye something fine."
They gathered together their arrows and their belongings and set off at
once, the centaur leading Elbryan deep into the forest, past the pine and the
caribou moss, down a deep valley, then up its other side. They walked for
several hours, speaking little, but with the centaur often lifting his pipes to
play. At last, the sun moving low in the western sky, they came to a secluded
grove of pines, neatly tended into roughly a diamond shape. It sat on the gentle
slope of a wide hill, surrounded on all sides by a meadow of tall grass and
wildflowers. Elbryan could hardly believe that he hadn't found this grove
before, that his ranger instincts hadn't guided him to a place so naturally
perfect, so in tune with the harmony of the forest. This grove -- every flower,
every bush, every tree and stone, and the trickling brook that crossed it -- was
something more than the ordinary forests of the region. It was something sacred,
something befitting Andur'Blough Inninness, and not of the tainted world of men.
There was some magic here; Elbryan felt that as clearly as he had felt the
magic of the elven valley. Reverently, almost as if in a trance, the ranger
approached, Bradwarden at his side. They crossed the outer line of thick
evergreens into the heart of the grove and found bare paths weaving through the
dense undergrowth. Elbryan walked along without speaking a word, as if fearing
to disturb the stillness, for not a hint of a breeze came in through that wall
of pines.
The path meandered, joining another, then forking three ways. The grove
was not large, perhaps two hundred yards across and half again that measure in
length, but Elbryan was certain that the paths, if straightened and laid end to
end, would cover several miles. He looked back often to Bradwarden for guidance,
but the centaur paid him no heed, just followed silently.
They came to a dark, shady spot where the path forked left and right
around a great jut of rock covered with a thick patch of short, yellow flowers.
Elbryan glanced both ways, then, figuring that the paths converged just the
other side of the boulder, went right. He soon came to the expected joining,
and, looking ahead, he almost continued on.
"Not so perceptive for one trained by elves," the centaur remarked,
Bradwarden's deep voice shattering the stillness. Elbryan spun around, meaning
to hush him, but all thoughts of that, all thoughts of Bradwarden at all, left
him as he glanced past the centaur, to the back side of the boulder that had
split the path. Elbryan glided back, moving beside the centaur, staring hard at
the pile of rocks, eight feet by six and roughly diamond shaped. The ranger
glanced all about. They were in the very center of the grove, he realized, and
he realized, too, that this cairn was the source of the magic, that the tree-
lined borders of the grove seemed to be a reflection of this place.
He went down to one knee, studying the stones, marveling at the care with
which they had been placed. He touched one and felt a gentle tingling there, the
emanation of magic.
"Who is buried here?" the ranger whispered.
Bradwarden snorted and smiled. "Not for me to tell," he replied, and
Elbryan couldn't discern if the centaur meant that he did not know, or that it
was not his place to reveal the person's identity.
"Put in the ground by the elves," the centaur said, "when I was no bigger
than yerself."
Elbryan looked at him curiously. "And how long ago might that be," he
asked Bradwarden, "in the measure of human years?"
 The centaur shrugged and pawed the ground uneasily. "Half a. man's life,"
he replied, as exact an answer as Elbryan was going to get.
The ranger let it go. He didn't need to know who was buried here.
Obviously the man, or elf or whatever it might be, was important to the
Touel'alfar; obviously they had graced this place, this cairn and the grove that
had grown about it, with more than a small measure of their magic. He could be
satisfied with that; Bradwarden had promised to show him something fine, and
indeed the centaur had fulfilled that pledge.
There remained, however, the matter of Elbryan's prize for winning the
archery contest. He looked up at the centaur.
"Ye just keep coming here," Bradwarden remarked, as if reading Elbryan's
thoughts, "and yell find the one who leads the horses."
The notion filled the ranger with both excitement and fear. They left the
grove soon after, to find an evening meal. Elbryan returned later that night,
and then again the next day, but it wasn't until his fourth journey, some two
weeks later, after he had returned from his rounds to End-o'-the-World, that he
found Bradwarden's payment.
It was a brisk autumn day, the wind whipping though inside the grove, the
air remained still -- leaves and clouds alike, the puffy white mountains
drifting swiftly overhead across the rich blue sky. Elbryan went right to the
heart of the grove, paying homage to whoever was buried there, then came back to
the edge, wanting to feel the breeze in his face.
Then he heard the music.
At first he thought it was Bradwarden at work with his pipes, but then he
realized that it was too sweet, a subtle vibration in the ground and air, a
natural song. It didn't increase in volume or intensity, just played on, and
Elbryan soon realized it to be a heralding call, the run of hooves and the wind.
He turned and ran along to the southern tip of the grove, though he had no idea
of what might be guiding him.
Across the wide meadow, past the flowers and the grass, he saw perfection
of form, a huge stallion, milling about the shadows of the distant trees.
Elbryan held his breath as the great horse, shining black except for white
on the bottoms of its forelegs and a white diamond above its eyes, came out onto
the open field. It was taking his measure, Elbryan knew, though he was not
downwind and too far for most horses even to notice him.
The stallion pawed the ground, then reared and whinnied. It came forward
in a short burst, a show of strength, then turned and thundered away into the
forest.
Elbryan breathed again. He knew the magnificent steed would not return
that day, and so he walked away, not in the direction in which the horse had run
but back toward Dundalis. He found Bradwarden, at work crafting some devilish
arrows, and the centaur's face immediately brightened.
"Welcome back," Bradwarden offered with a chuckle. "I see ye've already
been to the grove."
Elbryan blushed to think that his emotions were so clearly displayed on
his face.
"I telled ye," the centaur gloated. "So fine a creature is --" He stopped
and laughed again.
"The stallion has a name?"
"Different to all," Bradwarden remarked. "But ye must be knowing it if ye
want to get close to him."
"And how might I learn it?"
"Silly boy," said Bradwarden. "Ye do not learn it, ye just know it."
The centaur walked off then, leaving Elbryan with, his thoughts.
The ranger was back at the grove the next day, and the next after that,
and every day, until finally, more than a week later, he heard, or rather, felt
the music once more, this time from the west.
 "Smart," he quietly congratulated when the horse came into view on the
edge of the shadows, for the stallion's approach was downwind this time, that it
might get a scent of this intruder to the grove without offering its own scent
in return.
After a few minutes, the horse came out onto the open field, and again
Elbryan's breath was stolen away by the sheer beauty of the thing, by its
muscled flanks and wide chest, by the intelligence of its features, those
knowing black eyes.
A word came to the ranger then, but he shook his head, not understanding.
He took a step forward and the horse ran off, breaking the spell and ending the
encounter.
Their third meeting came only a day later, the same way as the previous,
the stallion approaching tentatively from the west, eyeing Elbryan and pawing
the ground.
That word was in his head again, a word that perfectly described the
appearance of the great horse.
"Symphony!" the ranger called out, stepping boldly from the grove: To
Elbryan's surprise, to his delight and his horror, the horse reared and neighed
loudly, then fell back to all fours and pawed hard at the ground.
"Symphony," Elbryan repeated over and over as he cautiously approached.
What other name could so fit such a horse? What other word could describe the
beauty and harmony, the working of muscle with muscle, the songlike vibrations,
as if all of nature heralded the run of the great stallion.
Before the ranger even realized it, he was within five strides of the
great horse.
"Symphony," he said quietly.
The horse nickered and threw back his head.
Elbryan moved closer, his hands out wide to show that he was not a threat:
Respectfully, he put his hand on the stallion's neck, stroking firmly and
evenly. Slowly; slowly, the horse's ears came up.
Then the great stallion leaped away, thundering back into the shadows,
into the brush.
The pair met day after day, each time growing more comfortable. Elbryan
soon realized that this horse was meant for him, as surely as if the elves had
put him here as companion for the ranger -- and that thought, too, did not seem
so ridiculous.
"Did they?" he asked his uncle Mather at Oracle one night. "Is Symphony,
for I know that to be the stallion's proper title, a gift to me from the elves,
from Juraviel, perhaps?"
There came no reply, of course, but hearing his own words, Elbryan
discovered one distinct flaw in his reasoning.
"Not a gift, then," he said, "for no such animal could ever be given. But
surely the elves have played some role, for this was no chance meeting and the
response from the horse was not as would be expected from a creature running
fully wild all its life.
"The cairn," Elbryan whispered a moment later, discovering his answer. It
seemed so perfectly clear to him then; the magic of the cairn had somehow
brought Symphony to him -- no, it had brought the two of them together, ranger
and stallion. Now more than ever, Elbryan wanted to know who was buried there,
what great man -- or elf or centaur, perhaps -- had been placed so reverently in
the ground by the Touel'alfar, with magic strong enough to tend that perfect
grove, strong enough to call Symphony and to give the horse such intelligence.
For surely it was the magic of the cairn that had done all of this; Elbryan knew
that without doubt.
The next day, he rode Symphony for the first time, bareback, clutching
tight to the horse's thick mane. The wind rushed past his ears, the landscape
flying along beneath, such a thrill of the run, such a smoothness of stride,
that Elbryan would have sworn he was flying across a cushion of air.
As soon as he dismounted, back in the meadow by the grove, Symphony turned
and ran off, and Elbryan made no move to stop the stallion, for he knew that
this was not the normal rider-horse relationship, not a relationship of master
to beast but a friendship of mutual respect and trust.
Symphony would come back to him, he knew, would let him ride again, but.
on the stallion's own terms.
Elbryan gave a salute to that place on the forest's edge where the
stallion had disappeared, a motion of respect and understanding that he and
Symphony had their own separate lives but were joined now.

CHAPTER 31
Home Again, Home Again

Over the next couple of weeks, as they marched along the trails, Avelyn showed
Jill just how much he had come to trust her, for he began formally tutoring her
in the ways of the stones. At first, the monk used the conventional methods, the
same lessons that had been given to him in St.-Mere-Abelle. He saw at once,
though, that Jill was far beyond an average beginning student, was nearly. as
strong as he had been when Master Jojonah had played the out-of-body game with
him that first time. Avelyn understood the source. Jill was naturally strong,
but surely not as strong as he had been. But she was no beginner. That joining
by means of the hematite when he had been sorely wounded had given her an
understanding of accessing the powers on a level that other monks spent months,
even years, trying to attain. As their friendship deepened, their trust becoming
so strong, Avelyn again dared to use the hematite to instruct Jill. Not only was
her gain exponential, but so was the monk's understanding of this secretive
woman -- and of her dark past.
"Dundalis." The word fell from Jill's lips like the peal of a church bell,
a chime that could be of celebration, of hope and the future promise of eternal
life, or one that could signify death. The young woman ran a hand through her
hair, which had grown thick to her shoulders again, and looked at Avelyn
suspiciously. "You knew," she accused.
Avelyn shrugged, having no practical response.
"Somehow you discovered my history," the woman went on, using excitement,
a sense of betrayal, to block away the more urgent feelings that were welling up
inside her as she considered that long-lost name, the name of the village that
had been her home and apparently the name of a new village, built on the same
spot. "In Palmaris," Jill reasoned, "you spoke with Graevis!"
"Pettibwa, actually," Avelyn admitted dryly.
"You dared?"
"I had no choice," Avelyn retorted. "I am your friend."
Jill stuttered incoherently for a moment, trying to sort it all out.
Avelyn had led her north of the city, along the Masur Delaval to its delta, then
turning inland, heading for the wilderness. It had happened in a roundabout
manner; Jill feared that she might be wandering into once-familiar territory,
but really nothing had sparked recognition within her, not until the pair had
ventured into a town called End-o'-the-World and had heard that name "Dundalis"
spoken aloud. She wanted to lash out at Avelyn at that moment, but she could not
deny his last words. Indeed the monk was her friend, among the best of friends
Jill had ever known. She need only look at the gift he was giving to her with
the stones to confirm that he loved her.
"You run from ghosts, my friend, my dearest Jill," Avelyn explained. "I
see your pain and feel it as though it were my own. It is evident in every
stride you take, in every smile you feign= yea, feign, I say, for have you
really smiled, Jill? In all of your life?"
Tears welled in the young woman's shining blue eyes and she looked away.
"You have, I say!" Avelyn insisted. "Of course you have! But,. that was
before the disaster, before the ghosts began to walk in your footsteps."
"Why did you bring me here?"
"Because here those ghosts have nothing to hide behind," Avelyn remarked
firmly. "Here, in this new village that was once your home, you will confront
those ghosts and banish them to the peace they deserve, and the peace you
deserve."
It was spoken with such resolve, such strength, that Jill could no longer
be angry with him. Brother Avelyn was indeed her friend, she knew, and he wanted
only what was best for her, would fight and die for her sake. But still she
feared that his decision was folly, based on his underestimating the pain within
her. Avelyn could not truly appreciate that grief; nor could Jill, but she
feared it lurked right below the surface and, if loosed, would surely consume
her.
She nodded mutely, having no answers, having only fears. She walked in the
back door of the tavern, then to the private room she and Avelyn had rented. She
didn't know what memories the familiar name might conjure, but she wanted to be
alone when she faced them.
He had been angered beyond words, had spat and kicked down the door of his
room, had even broken the jaw of one woman of the night who had offered her
wares. For Palmaris had deceived him as. much as his encounter with the merchant
Dosey had unnerved him. Brother Justice had not gained on his intended prey --
had, in fact, lost ground, wandering aimlessly about the large city. Only chance
had brought him in contact with a man named Bildeborough and a rake named Grady
Chilichunk, drunkards both.
Brother Justice found their stories, sputtered for the price of a few
cheap ales, quite interesting. Especially Grady's, when the man mentioned that
he had seen yet another Abellican monk only a month before, talking with his
mother, Pettibwa, in Fellowship Way. "How uncommon that two of you should come
out together," Grady remarked, not politely. "Normally your kind are so
reclusive; and what do you do to entertain yourselves within those abbey walls?"
The implications were clear, considering the man's lewd manner, and Grady
and Connor shared a laugh.
Brother Justice used a fantasy of twisting the fool's head off to force a
smile. The monk remained polite long enough to learn that this other Abellican
monk, whom he suspected to be Brother Avelyn, had gone out to the north to the
Wilderlands and the Timberlands, to a place called Weedy Meadow.
There were no merchant caravans going north from Palmaris at that time,
with autumn settling thick over the land and the promise of a deep winter, but
that hardly deterred the resourceful Brother Justice. He set out alone, moving
swiftly, running more than walking, determined to make up the ground and be done
with this business.
She remembered that long-ago morning on the tree-covered slope, looking at
the sky, at the shining Halo, with its rainbow of colors, its heavenly allure.
She remembered the music filling all the air. She had not been alone that
morning, Jill now realized, for she had called out her discovery.
"A boy," she whispered to the empty corners of her small room. The name
"Elbryan" nipped at the edges of her mind, but with it came an overwhelming
sense of grief and loss: that black wall of pain that caused her to shrink away,
that had made her put the glowing ember in Connor Bildeborough's face.
Jill took a deep breath and forced all the memories away. She did not
sleep at all that night, but still, she was packed for the road early the next
morning, leading a groggy -- and hungover -- Avelyn by the hand out of the inn,
tugging him down the eastern road, toward the village known as Dundalis.
 They arrived late that afternoon, the sun settling on the western horizon,
the long, slanted shadows rolling out from the buildings of the new village.
Jill didn't recognize the place, not at all, and she was surprised by this fact.
She had held her breath along the last expanse of road before Dundalis came into
sight, expecting to be overwhelmed by sudden memories. It simply didn't happen
like that. This was Dundalis, built on the remains of the former Dundalis, but
it resembled Weedy Meadow, End-o'-the-World, or any other frontier village as
much as it resembled its namesake -- at least at first glance.
Avelyn let Jill lead him through the village, down the one main road,
heading north. There was an old, broken-down fence on the northern edge of town,
formerly a corral, Jill realized, and beyond it was the slope.
The slope.
"I saw the Halo from there," she remarked.
Avelyn smiled, but only briefly, remembering his most vivid encounters
with the Halo, so far, far away on board a swift sailing ship on his most
important and sacred mission.
"It was real," Jill whispered, more to herself than to Avelyn. She took
some satisfaction in that, in knowing that the small fragment of her past life
that was clear to her was indeed something real and not imagined. Looking up
from the northern edge of Dundalis to the slope that separated the town from the
valley of evergreens and caribou moss, to the slope that had been so important
to her in her youth, Jill knew beyond any doubt that her memory of sighting the
majestic Halo was indeed real. She felt it again, that tingling sensation, that
removal of mortal bonds to soar into the infinite universe.
"The boy," she remarked.
"You were with someone?" Avelyn asked, trying to coax her on.
Jill nodded. "Someone dear," she replied.
The moment passed; Jill turned back toward the town. She paused before she
got all the way around, though, staring hard at the old corral fence. "I used to
play on that fence," she announced. "We would climb up to the top rail and bet
on how long we could walk it."
We?"
"My friends," Jill said, without really thinking about her answer.
Avelyn had hoped that his latest prompt would get her to name some of
those lost friends, but he wasn't too disappointed with its failure. The trip
north had been a wise thing, the monk believed, for now, only a few minutes
after entering Dundalis, Jill had recaptured more of her past than she had known
in many years.
"Bunker Crawyer," she said suddenly, her expression turning curious.
"A friend?"
"No," Jill replied, pointing to the old fence. "It was his corral. Bunker
Crawyer's corral."
Avelyn smiled widely, but hid it when Jill turned to regard him, her
frustration evident. It was coming back, but painfully slowly, for now she was
growing quite impatient.
"Let us go and get lodging for the night," the monk offered. "We passed an
inn on our way to this place."
Avelyn knew that another memory had come over Jill, this one more
powerful, as they approached the front door of the place called the Howling
Sheila, a large tavern near the center of Dundalis. The woman looked not at the
building, but at the ground beneath it, her expression shifting from curiosity
to fear to outright horror.
She turned away, trembling, and Avelyn caught her even as she started to
run. If he let her go, the monk suspected that she would run all the way back to
Weedy Meadow, all the way back to End-o'-the-World, all the way back to
Palmaris!
"You know this place," Avelyn said, holding her fast.
 Jill's breath came in gasps; she smelled smoke, thick and black. Though
she was outside, she felt as if she were suffocating, closed within a space that
was too tight.
"You know!" Avelyn declared forcefully, giving her a shake.
Jill's deep breath resonated like a growl and she turned, pulling free of
the monk, staring hard at the tavern, at its stone foundation. "I hid in there,"
she said, working hard so that her voice would not break apart. "While all the
town burned down around me. While all the screams..."
Her words faded to a choking sniffle, her straightened shoulders slumped
suddenly, and she would have fallen to the ground had not Avelyn held her tight.
There was no other inn in Dundalis, and besides, Avelyn had not come all
this way simply to allow Jill to run again from her terrible past. He paid for a
single room, for there was but one vacancy, pointedly explaining to the jolly
Belster O'Comely that there was nothing romantic or lewd between him and the
girl, that they were merely good friends and traveling companions. That was the
first time he had ever bothered to offer such an explanation, Avelyn mused as he
led Jill up the stairs from the common room to their sleeping quarters. The monk
believed that they might remain in this town for some time, and since the
community was so small and so closed, he felt the need to protect Jill's
reputation. She would face enough trials in Dundalis, Avelyn knew, without
hearing the nasty whispers of gossiping townsfolk.
Jill went right to sleep, overcome by the sheer power of the memory.
Avelyn remained with her for a long while, fearing that disturbing dreams would
visit her.
She slept soundly, perhaps too drained for dreams. Finally Avelyn could
not ignore the commotion from the common room below any longer. Most of the
village was gathered there, the monk knew, and for all of his love for Jill --
and he did indeed love the girl, as a father might love a daughter -- the
battered monk had needs of his own.
He was downstairs soon enough, drinking and talking amid a huge crowd, for
many of the area trappers had come in to lay in provisions in preparation of the
coming winter. They were a tough bunch indeed, reclusive and opinionated, men
and a few women who lived by their weapons and their cunning, and Avelyn was
soon enough arguing with one rake that a town whose history was as dark as that
of Dundalis should be better prepared to face the danger.
When the trapper scoffed that the most dangerous thing in the area was the
occasional hungry raccoon, Brother Avelyn promptly put his fist in the man's
face.
The monk was alone with Belster O'Comely in the common room when he woke
up, a slab of steak positioned over one eye.
"Ho, ho, what?" he asked the innkeeper. "Best training the folk around
here have seen in years!"
Belster gave a laugh. The folk of Dundalis were, a hardy bunch, not shying
from the occasional fight. In a weird way, Avelyn -- who had fought well, though
he hardly remembered
it had earned a bit of respect that night, though most of the men and women who
had been in the common room thought him mad.
Belster presented him with a piece of paper, a bill. "They decided that
you would pay for the last round of drinks," the innkeeper remarked.
"Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn howled, and he was smiling wide as he turned over
the pieces of silver.
That jolly smile turned to one of warmth as the monk entered his rented
room to find Jill curled up about her pillow, seeming like such a little lost
girl. Avelyn knelt by her bed and stroked her thick golden hair, then kissed her
on the cheek.
CHAPTER 32
Darkness Rising

Elkenbrook was a village not unlike Dundalis or Weedy Meadow, except that, being
on the western border of Alpinador, it was a colder place, with more hardy
evergreens and fewer deciduous trees. Winter in Elkenbrook began in the eighth
month of the year, Octenbrough, usually within a few weeks of the autumnal
equinox, and lingered on until the month of Toumanay had passed, giving way to a
short spring and shorter summer. The folk of Elkenbrook were. light skinned and
light of eye and hair, as was true of most of their Alpinadoran brethren. And,
again as befitted the race, they were undeniably hardy, tall and square
shouldered, accustomed to hardship. Even the children of the Alpinadoran
frontier -- and most of the still -- wild kingdom was considered frontier! --
could wield a weapon, for goblins and fomorian giants were much more common up
north than in the more civilized southern kingdoms. The settlement, in attitude
and posture, reflected this, for Elkenbrook, unlike the villages of northern
Honce-the-Bear, was walled by an eight-foot fence of spiked logs.
Thus, when the scouts of Elkenbrook reported goblin sign, the hardy folk
were not too concerned. Even when giant footsteps were noted mingled in with
those of the wretched smaller humanoids, the village leaders only shrugged
stoically and began sharpening their long broadswords and heavy axes.
It wasn't until the very moment before the attack, eight hours after the
dawn, the pale sun already touching the western horizon, that Elkenbrook truly
appreciated its enemy and understood its doom. Normally the goblins would have
come in as a mob, a rushing horde, barreling past the trees and scrub, throwing
themselves wildly against the pickets and barricades. This time, though, the
wretches ringed the village, completely encircling it with ranks ten deep! And
the goblin line was bolstered every twenty paces by a fomorian giant wrapped in
layers and layers of thick furs.
The folk of Elkenbrook had never known such a huge gathering of goblins,
could not conceive of the notion that the hateful, selfish creatures could ever
band together in such numbers. Yet here they were, countless spearheads
glistening in the last slanted rays of day, countless shields, emblazoned with
the standards of many different tribes, standing side by side.
As one, the village folk held their breath, too overwhelmed to speak, to
offer any new directives or strategies. Often marauding goblins would send in a
messenger before the attack to ask for surrender, to barter for a bribe, warning
that battle would otherwise be joined. The usual answer to such a request came
in the form of the messenger's head staked before the village wall.
This time, though, more than a few of the village folk were considering
their options should an emissary approach.
The goblins held their line for several minutes, then, on command, their
ranks parted, doubled in depth as each warrior stepped left or right, a single,
brisk movement.
Out from the gaps in the line came the next surprise, a goblin cavalry,
the diminutive creatures astride shaggy ponies. Goblin riders were not unknown
but were considered a rarity -- never had any of the folk of Elkenbrook imagined
that so many could be together.
"Four hundred," one man estimated, and that guess put the goblin cavalry
alone at twice the number of Elkenbrook's entire population.
Just as stunning to the hardy folk was the manner in which the goblin
lines had parted. "Trained army," another man muttered.
"Disciplined," yet another agreed, his expression incredulous -- and
desperate, for it was no secret among the Alpinadorans that the only thing that
had kept the fierce and prolific goblins from overrunning the entire northland
was their inability to band together. Goblins fought goblins more often than
they fought humans -- or any other race, for that matter.
 Directly before Elkenbrook's main gate, four creatures emerged from the
ranks: a huge fomorian, nearly three times a tall man's height, wrapped in furs
and the skin of a white bear and carrying the largest club any of the villagers
had ever seen, an incredibly ugly goblin, its face scarred and disfigured, one
arm chopped away just below the elbow; and two curious creatures, goblin sized
but not goblin shaped, with barrel-like stout bodies and spindly arms and legs
that seemed too skinny to support them. Most striking of all about these last
two creatures were their berets, shining bright red in the fast-dimming light.
"Bloody Caps," one man offered, and there were nods of agreement, though
none of Elkenbrook's folk had ever before actually seen one of the infamous
powries.
Again, the enemy line held its formidable posture as the seconds slipped
by. Then one of the powries motioned to the giant, and the fomorian, grinning
wickedly, lifted the dwarf high into the air. His eyes locked firmly on
Elkenbrook, the dwarf removed his beret and waved it about in the air, high
above his head.
The folk recognized the dramatic movement as a signal and braced for the
charge, determined to take their toll, whatever the final outcome. What they
heard, though, was not the thunder of hooves or the howls of charging goblins
but the creaking swish of powrie war engines. Great stones, twelve-foot spears,
and balls of burning pitch soared through the air, turning the tensed, frozen
town into a frenzy of screams and cries, splintering logs, and hissing flames.
Few folk remained on the wall when the second volley roared in, for they
were engaged in tending wounded, in battling flames, and shoring up defensive
barricades. Most did not see the charge then, a splendid thing indeed; but they
heard it, the very ground shaking under their feet.
The third volley, more than two hundred spears hurled by the rushing
infantry, flew in just before the cavalry arrived, and thus as the riders poured
through the many openings in the walls, they found more dead villagers than
remaining defenders. Those folk who had survived the bombardment soon envied
their dead companions.
Elkenbrook was flattened before the sun dipped below the horizon. Maiyer
Dek of the fomorians, Gothra of the goblins, and Ubba Banrock and Ulg Tik'narn
of the powries stood at the center of the massacre, hands and eyes uplifted,
crying out to their leader, their god-figure.
Far away, on its obsidian throne in Aida, the dactyl heard them and
savored the kill, the first organized attack by its trained minions. The demon
could smell the blood and taste the fury as surely as if it had been on the
scene with its chieftains.
And this was but the first, the appetizer, the dactyl knew, for its army
continued to grow, black masses swarming into the embrace of Aida's dark arms,
and Alpinador's lonely villages were merely a testing ground. The real challenge
lay in the south, in the most prosperous and populous kingdom, in Honce-the-
Bear.
They would be ready as winter began to relinquish its grip on the land,
when the snows receded enough to free up the higher passes.
They would be ready.

Jill meandered this way and that on the forested slope north of Dundalis.
The first snows had fallen, a light and gentle blanket, and the air was chill,
the sky above showing the richest blue hue. That air alone brought to the young
woman familiarity, a crispness that she had not known in the city of Palmaris
nor in Pireth Tulme, where the dull and damp fog seemed eternal. Jill had known
this air, so crisp and so clean, in her youth, in this place; and images of that
past life flitted past the edges of her consciousness now, brief glimpses of
what had once been.
 She knew that her life had been happy, her youth full of freedom and wild
games. She knew that she had had many friends, coconspirators in one grand and
mischievous scheme after another. Life had been somehow simpler and cleaner,
hard work and hard play, good food fairly earned, and laughter that came from
the belly, not from any sense of good manners.
Still, the details of that past existence escaped her, as did the actual
names, though many of the faces returned. Such was her frustration that bright
morning as she walked about the forested slope to the tip of the ridge, to a
pair of twin pines overlooking the wide vale of ever-white mossy ground and
squat trues, their dark branches dusted by the recent snow.
More images came rushing to her as soon as she sat in the nook of those
pines. She pictured a line of hunters weaving in and out of the trees in the
mossy vale. She envisioned shoulder poles, and recalled her excitement that the
hunt had apparently been successful.
Then the images began to crowd back, of herself running to the group,
losing sight of them as she entered the low vale, weaving in and out of the
barrier pines and spruce, running with a friend. She remembered rushing through
that last obstacle, the feel of the prickly pine branches on her arms, and
coming face-to-face with the returning hunters -- yes, she could see their
faces, and among them was her father!
She remembered! And their poles were laden with the deer they would need,
and with . . . something else.
Jill's eyes opened wide, the memory suddenly too vivid, the recollection
of that ugly, misshapen dead thing assaulting her, telling her mind to run away.
She held the image fast, though her breath would hardly come to her. She
remembered that morning, that bright morning, so much like this one. She had
seen the Halo, and then the hunters, including her father, had returned with the
winter provisions -- and with the goblin.
"The goblin," Jill whispered aloud, the very name assuring her that this
past event had been the foretelling of doom for Dundalis, for her home, her
family, and her friends.
She fought hard to steady her breathing, to keep her hands from trembling.
"Are you well, my lady?"
She nearly jumped out of her boots, spinning fast to face the questioner:
a monk of the Abellican Church, wearing the same style brown robe as Brother
Avelyn, its hood pulled back to reveal a shaven head. He was much shorter than
Avelyn, but with wide shoulders, obviously strong.
"Are you well?"
He asked the question softly, gently, but Jill sensed a hard edge to his
voice and that his concern was merely for show. He studied her intently, she
noted, staring long at her hair, at her eyes and lips, as if he were taking a
measure of her.
Indeed he was. Brother Justice had heard many descriptions of the woman
traveling beside the mad friar, and as he looked upon this woman now, upon her
lips, so thick and full, her stunning blue eyes, and that thick mane of golden
hair, he knew.
"You should not be up here all alone," he mentioned.
Jill scoffed and brushed her fingers across the hilt of her short sword,
not to threaten but merely to display that she was not unarmed. "I served in the
army of the King," she assured the monk, "in the Coastpoint Guards." The way the
man's eyes narrowed in recognition suddenly caught Jill off guard and made her
think that perhaps she had not been wise in mentioning that fact.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"What is your own?" Jill snapped back, growing ever more defensive. It
struck her as curious that a brother of the Abellican Church should be this far
to the north and should be out alone away from the village. She considered
Avelyn's story then, his abandonment of the order. Might there be consequences
for such an action? Might the mad friar's increasing reputation have brought
unwanted recognition from the strict order?
"My name has never been important," the monk replied evenly, "except to
one. To a man once of my order but who deserted the way and who stole from my
abbey. Yes," he said, viewing clearly Jill's growing look of apprehension, "to
Brother Avelyn Desbris, I am Brother Justice. To your companion, my girl, I am
doom incarnate, sent from the church to retrieve what he stole."
Jill was up on her feet, backing steadily, sword drawn.
"You would attack a lawful emissary of the church?" the monk demanded.
"One whose title as Brother Justice is fair and true, and who carries the
punishment rightfully earned by the outlaw monk you name as your companion?"
"I will defend Avelyn," Jill assured the man. "He is no outlaw."
The monk scoffed, standing easily. Then suddenly, brutally, he leaped
ahead, fell low in a spinning crouch, and kicked up hard at Jill's extended
sword.
A deft twist by the woman turned the sword out of harm's way, allowing
Brother Justice merely a glancing hit that forced Jill back a step.
Brother Justice squared himself, ready to spring again, his: respect for
the woman growing. She was no novice to battle, this one, with finely honed
reflexes.
"It is rumored that you, too, are an outlaw," he teased, edging closer, "a
deserter from Pireth Tulme."
Jill didn't flinch, didn't blink.
"Perhaps the Coastpoint Guards will offer a bounty," the monk said, and he
came on fiercely, spinning another kick, then turning straight and kicking out
three time in rapid succession, his foot snapping hard at Jill from various
heights. She dodged each, sidestepping, then came in hard with a thrust of her
own.
Her conscience held her, forced her to realize that she was about to kill
a human being.
She needn't have worried, for her sword would never have gotten close to
striking the deadly monk. Brother Justice let it come in at him, turning subtly
at the very last moment, his left arm rolling under, then up and out, against
the flat of the blade. He stepped ahead as he parried, launching a heavy right
cross.
Jill retreated immediately, but got stung on the ribs, her breath blasted
away. She staggered backward, setting her feet as she went, ready to fend off
the expected attack.
As her thoughts cleared, she saw that the monk was not pursuing, was not
capitalizing on the advantage he had earned. He stood calmly, a dozen feet away,
one hand in a pocket of his robe. To Jill's amazement, his eyes closed.
The woman's questions were lost suddenly in a dizzying rush, for though
the monk had not physically moved, he came at her again, at her very spirit, and
suddenly the woman was fighting, through sheer willpower, to retain control of
her body!
Intense pain shot through Jill's body and soul, and through the monk's, as
well, she knew -- though that thought gave her little comfort. She felt his
obscene intrusion as a shadowy wall, pushing into her, pushing her away from her
own body. At first, she felt overwhelmed, felt as if she could not possibly
resist. But soon she came to understand that in this body -- in this, her home
battleground -- she could indeed withstand the monk's wicked intrusion. The
shadowy wall edged back as Jill pushed hard with all her considerable willpower.
She envisioned herself as a light source, a blazing sun, rightful owner of this
mortal coil, and she fought back.
Then the shadow was gone, and Jill staggered a step and opened her eyes.
 He was right in her face, leering at her. She understood then that his
mental attack had been but a ruse, a distraction from which he could recover
much faster than she.
She knew that, in the split second of consciousness she had remaining. She
knew all of it and yet that knowledge brought only despair, for he was too
close, too ready, and she could not hope to defend.
Brother Justice knifed his hand into her throat, dropping her back to the
snow and dirt. A single clean blow, but a punch pulled, for the monk did not
want the woman dead. Her knowledge would be valuable in locating treacherous
Avelyn, he presumed, and her presence as his prisoner would certainly aid in
bringing the outlaw monk to him:
He did not want the woman dead, not yet, but the monk knew that when his
business with Avelyn was finished, this woman, Jill, too, would have to die.
Brother Justice cared not at all.

CHAPTER 33
The Telling Blow

Elbryan sat far in the back of the Howling Sheila, pushing his chair right into
the corner that he might have the security of walls on both his rear flanks. The
ranger wasn't expecting trouble -- the people of Dundalis might not like him,
but they had never been openly hostile -- it was simply his training at work,
always reminding him to place himself in the most defensible position.
The crowd was loud this night, the tavern packed full, for a light snow
was falling outside and the people feared that it might intensify. A blizzard
could effectively shut the folk in their homes for a week straight.
The drinks were flowing, the conversation rowdy and mostly about the
weather, except in one corner of the bar where a fat, brown-robed man and
several townsfolk were arguing about the potential of a goblin raid.
"Happened before," Brother Avelyn declared dryly. "Whole town flattened
and only one -- or perhaps none -- survived." The monk snorted and hoped his
slip would not be noticed. Jill's secret was his to keep, and hers -- and hers
alone -- to reveal.
"But only after Dundalis' hunters killed a goblin in the woods," protested
a man named Tol Yuganick, a bear of a man, though he did not seem so large next
to three-hundred-pound Avelyn. "And that was nearly a decade ago. The goblins
would not come back. No reason."
"And not with Dusty on the prowl," another man laughed, turning to glance
across the room to the ranger, alone at his table in the back corner. The other
three townsfolk joined in the laughter, more than willing to do so at Elbryan's
expense.
"And who is this man?" Avelyn wanted to know.
"An attentive ear for your tales of doom," remarked Tol, quaffing his
entire mug of beer, so that his lips and chin were covered in foam.
"And was it not Elbryan who took care. of that marauding black bear?"
asked Belster O'Comely, moving down to that end of the bar, wiping it rather
enthusiastically to force two of the men away. "The same bear that sacked your
own home, Burgis Gown!"
The smaller man, Burgis, shied away at the declaration.
"Bah!" Tol snorted, a cloud of anger crossing his brutish features. The
huge man had never appreciated Belster's relationship with the strange Nightbird
and had said so often and loudly.
Belster held his ground behind the bar. For a long time, the innkeeper had
kept his friendship with Elbryan quiet and low-key, knowing that his own
reputation might be at stake. Lately, though, Belster had begun changing that.
He had recently commissioned a specially designed saddle from the local
leatherworker, and had made no secret that it was for Nightbird, payment for
some work the ranger had done for him.
"The bear was sick and dying anyway," Tol Yuganick blustered on. "Doubt
that Elbryan there, our lord protector, ever saw the damned thing."
Several grunts and nods of agreement followed. Belster, understanding that
he would get nowhere with this surly crowd, just shook his head and moved along
with his work. He knew that any reminder of the bear incident bothered Tol, for
the hunter had sworn to get the bear himself -- and would have been paid a
fairly substantial reward if he had!
Brother Avelyn, too, ignored Tol Yuganick's cheering gallery. He studied
the man in the distant corner, the one Tol had referred to sarcastically as "our
lord protector," with new interest. Perhaps this one understood the truth of the
world, he mused.
"I should think you would all be grateful," the monk remarked absently,
more thinking out loud than any directed comment.
A moment later, Avelyn, still focused on the man across the room, felt a
hard poke against his chest.
"We need no protecting!" Tol Yuganick declared, moving his contorted,
though still childish, face right before the monk's.
Avelyn looked long and hard at the man, at the cherubic features so
twisted by an almost maniacal rage. Then the monk glanced back over his
shoulder, to see Belster shaking his head resignedly, the barkeep knew what was
coming.
Avelyn stepped back and produced a small flask from under his cloak.
"Potion of courage," he whispered to Burgis Gosen, giving a wink, and then he
took a deep draw. He finished with a satisfied "Aaah!" then rubbed his free hand
briskly over his face while replacing the flask in his thick robes.
Then Avelyn eyed Tol squarely, matching the man's ominous expression with
one of pure excitement. Tol growled and came forward, but Avelyn was ready for
him.
"Ho, ho, what!" the monk bellowed as Tol moved to poke him in the chest
again. With a single sweeping left hook, Avelyn laid the big man low.
Two of Tol's companions jumped the monk immediately, but they were
shrugged away and the fight was on.
Behind the bar, Belster shook his head and sighed deeply, wondering how
many would be left standing to help him clean up the mess.

Brother Justice smiled wickedly as he approached the Howling Sheila, as he

heard the commotion of a fight,. confirmation that Brother Avelyn was within.
The monk had shed his telltale brown robe in favor of the more normal dress of a
villager. He wondered if his old friend Avelyn would recognize him without the
Abellican trappings, and that thought prompted the man to pull low the hood of
his traveling cloak.
Better for the surprise

Avelyn was outnumbered five to one -- and those odds were only due to the
fact that three other men were fighting on his side, or at least, against the
mob that was moving against the monk.
Elbryan, on his feet and ready, watched it all curiously, not quite
knowing what to make of the wild monk, as Avelyn, fighting wonderfully, kept
bellowing out for "preparedness," and calling the brawl a "readiness exercise."
The ranger was not unhappy at seeing Tol Yuganick and his friends getting a
beating, as long as things didn't get too out of hand.
Elbryan allowed himself a smile when brutish Tol pulled himself up from
the floor and charged the monk with a roar, only to have the huge man sidestep
at the last possible second, tripping Tol over a trailing leg, then helping him
along with a stiff forearm to the back of the flying man's head.
 "Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn howled in glee.
So Elbryan stood back from it all, figuring it to be one of those dangers
for the villagers to work out on their own. He kept Hawkwing, unstrung, ready at
his side, though, already deciding that no deadly revenge would be taken once
the monk was put down.
If the monk was put down, Elbryan soon corrected his thinking, for the fat
man moved with the grace and precision of a trained warrior. He dodged and
punched, took a hit and laughed it away, then buried his latest attacker with a
heavy punch or a well placed knee. He flipped two men at once over his huge
shoulders, laughing all the while. A chair shattered against his back, but while
Belster O'Comely groaned at the hit, the monk only laughed all the louder,
giving his habitual cry, "Ho, ho, what!"
Elbryan leaned on his staff, thinking this quite a show. As soon as his
posture eased, he was challenged almost immediately as an enthusiastic villager
used the opportunity of a general fight to take a punch at the disliked ranger.
Elbryan casually put Hawkwing out vertically in front of him, picking off
the punch with the hard wood. The attacker moaned and clutched his hand, and
Elbryan pulled hard down and toward himself with his upper hand so that the
staff's lower end shot up and out, right between the groaning man's legs.
Elbryan retracted the weapon and poked it straight out, setting it firmly
against the man's chest and pushing him away to fail, clutching hand and groin,
to the floor. Then the ranger went back to watching, thinking that the mad monk
would soon tire. If the man made but a single mistake, the mob of villagers
would overwhelm him.
Then Elbryan would step in.
The ranger smiled once more as Tol Yuganick attacked again, only to be
hammered away. Elbryan's grin faded fast, though, his expression turning to one
of curiosity, as a newcomer slipped in the tavern doors, moving easily through
the battling crowd. When one man turned to punch at him, the newcomer leveled
him with a series of three sharp, perfectly placed blows, launched with such
rapidity that the man hadn't even moved to respond to the first when the third
dropped him.
Even without the fighting display, Elbryan knew that this was no ordinary
villager. The man walked with the balanced gait of a warrior and sifted through
the crowd with the focus of an assassin -- and like an assassin, his face was
half-covered, a scarf pulled up high and tightly tied.
It wasn't difficult for the ranger to discern the man's target.
What enemies had this wild monk made? Elbryan wondered, as he, too, worked
through the tangled crowd, angling to intercept the newcomer.
The deadly punch was headed for Avelyn's throat, though the fat monk,
already engaged with two others, never saw it coming. Elbryan's staff picked it
off in midair, deflecting the blow up high. The newcomer, his balance and timing
perfect, hardly noticed, but followed with his second strike, his other hand
coming across hard.
Elbryan snapped his staff down low, quite hard, stinging the man on the
forearm.
Now Brother Justice did turn his sights on Elbryan, spinning to face him
with the sudden knowledge that this, too, was no ordinary villager who had come
to Avelyn's aid. A man tried to jump on the monk's back then, but Brother
Justice elbowed him hard in the chest, then the neck; then the face in rapid
succession, sending him tumbling away. None of those nearby who had seen the
defense wanted any part of the stranger, and none in the tavern -- except
perhaps for Tol, who was still on the floor -- wanted a fight with Elbryan. That
left the two, Elbryan and Brother Justice, standing face-to-face, an island of
calm in a raging sea, weirdly isolated from the rest of the thrashing mob.
The monk leaped ahead, feigning a punch and kicking straight out for
Elbryan's knee. Elbryan put his staff up high to block the expected punch, but
even though he seemed to fall for the ruse, the ranger was not caught. He spun a
reverse circuit off his back foot even as Brother Justice kicked, moving his leg
out of range.
Brother Justice came ahead hard, trying to beat the turn, to catch his foe
on the back before Elbryan could get all the way around.
Elbryan halted in mid-spin, reversed his energy, and sent the staff
straight out and back. He turned right under the weapon and launched it again in
a straight poke, driving his opponent backward. Then the ranger went into a
flurry: poking, swishing the staff side to side, then pulling it straight
across, and alternating a series of heavy blows, left hand leading, right hand
leading.
Brother Justice picked every attack off, his arms waving in a blur,
hardened forearms smacking against the polished wood. He tried to find some hole
in the ranger's press, some opening through which he might go on the attack once
more. But Elbryan's form was perfect, each strike following the previous too
closely for any countering move.
Still, the ranger did not get through the defenses of the skilled monk,
and soon enough, didn't even have Brother Justice backing any longer.
The attack flurry played itself out, Elbryan coming to a crouched stance,
Hawkwing horizontal in front of him. Now the monk did come on fiercely, chopping
at the staff as if he meant to snap it in half.
Elbryan was ready, had anticipated the move perfectly: He brought the
staff in close to his chest, Brother Justice's downward swipe falling short,
then rolled Hawkwing over the descending arm and snapped it down hard. In the
same motion, Elbryan came ahead a step and thrust both his hands, and thus the
staff, straight out horizontally, driving it under the monk's chin.
Brother Justice fell away as the wicked strike came in. He rolled his free
arm up, taking some of the momentum from the blow, then knifed his hand out
straight, scoring a hit of his own.
The two staggered apart, Elbryan gasping for breath, Brother Justice
trying to shake away the dizziness. Immediately the mob rolled in around them,
for all the Howling Sheila was flying fists and breaking chairs.
"Ho, ho, what!" came the exuberant bellow above the din, and it was
obvious to Elbryan that the fat monk was enjoying this row.
Elbryan heard the movement behind him, recognizing it as an attack. He
spun, Hawkwing extended, to pick off a lumbering hook, then brought the high tip
of his staff down hard diagonally, drawing blood on the face of Tol Yuganick.
Seeing the huge man dazed, Elbryan let go his weapon with one hand and snapped
his palm. into Tol's chin, dropping him heavily to the floor. Then the ranger
began his scan again, seeking the newcomer, this skilled fighter, this assassin.
The ranger elbowed through the brawl, blocking punches whenever necessary,
felling with three shortened blows yet another villager who tried to pounce upon
him.
Brother Justice moved in a wide circuit of the dangerous ranger. He took a
small pin from the rope belt of his robe and held it in tight, against his
sunstone. Sunstones were used as wards, primarily against magic but also against
various poisons. The stone's magic could be twisted, though -- could be
inverted.
Soon the monk spotted the ranger, predictably walking a guard near
fighting Avelyn. Slowly Brother Justice closed, using bodies as camouflage.
Elbryan noted the man's approach and was ready when the deadly monk came
in. He started for Elbryan but shifted suddenly and darted fast for Avelyn, who
was standing with his arms high above his head, spinning Burgis Gosen in
circles.
Elbryan had to move fast, had to throw his weight to the side frantically
to intercept. He noted the tiny flicker of silver in the newcomer's hand, noted
that the man held some weapon.
 He caught the newcomer by the wrist, accepted a punch from the man's other
hand in exchange for his own strike with Hawkwing. Brother Justice had the
better balance at that time, though, and Elbryan took the worst of it. He
staggered to one knee, trying to find a defensive posture, expecting to be
pummeled.
The attack never came. Elbryan saw a shadow cross before him -- Burgis
Gosen in Avelyn -- launched flight -- and when the tangle sorted out, the
newcomer was not to be seen.
Only then did Elbryan realize that the wrist of the arm with which he had
grabbed the assassin was bleeding, a thin line of red. Not a serious wound,
surely, but one that seemed to burn with an anger of its own. The ranger
shrugged it away and hustled to the side of the fat monk.
Avelyn was ready for the charge, his hands moving in swift defense.
Elbryan had no time for that, though. "I am no enemy!" he declared, but when
Avelyn, howling his usual "Ho, ho, what!" punched out anyway, Elbryan skittered
down to one knee, hooked his staff behind the fat man's legs, and uprooted him.
The monk fell hard to the floor.
Elbryan was over him in an instant, more to protect him from the angry
crowd than in any fear of retaliation. "I am no enemy!" he yelled again, and he
caught the fat man by the wrist and yanked him to his feet, then rushed him out
of the tavern.
The fight continued without them; Avelyn had merely given the villagers
and the visiting trappers an excuse for a wild party.
Brother Avelyn was full of questions, full of protests, but the ranger
would hear none of them. He ushered the monk away, his own eyes darting from
shadow to shadow, expecting the deadly stranger to be about. Finally they got
behind the back wall of the northernmost house in the village, just beneath the
forested slope.
"Preparedness training," Avelyn explained, and the look on his face showed
that he meant to carry on the fight out here, with just this one "trainee."
One good look at Elbryan changed Avelyn's mind, though. Lines of sweat
streaked the ranger's face and his breath came in short gasps. Elbryan held up
his wrist, staring at the wound, presenting it as explanation to the now-curious
monk.
Avelyn caught the arm and held it up in the moonlight. It was not a
serious wound, a tiny slice, too small to have been caused by a dagger, even.
That alone told the monk that this man was in serious trouble. For a wound so
minuscule to cause such pain could only mean . . .
Avelyn fumbled to find his hematite. He suspected poison and understood
that the longer it took him to go after the insidious substance, the more deeply
he would have to join his spirit with his patient's and the more agony it would
cause both of them.
As soon as he started, however, Brother Avelyn found a frightening twist.
This man had been-poisoned, no doubt about it, but the poison was not based in
any substance, in any herb or plant or any animal venom. It was magically based;
the monk could feel that keenly. As such, it was quite easy for Avelyn to
counter the effects with his powerful hematite, and soon Elbryan was breathing
steadily again, soon the burning pain was no more.
"No enemy?" Avelyn asked when he saw that Elbryan was fine and steady.
"No enemy," the ranger replied. "But know that you will make enemies, my
friend, with such talk and such --"
"Preparedness training," Avelyn finished with a wink.
"Indeed," the ranger said dryly. "And they will surely prepare the ground
for your interment if you continue to battle with some of the scoundrels about
Dundalis."
 Avelyn nodded and shrugged helplessly. "Your wound will heal," he assured
the ranger, and then he started away, into the dark night, heading back toward
the Howling Sheila, where the fighting was gradually diminishing.
Elbryan watched him go, taking some comfort in the fact that the man
swerved for the inn's side door and was apparently going to his room, not back
to the common room. The fat monk was in real trouble, the ranger realized, for
that man he had fought, that man with the poisoned needle, was much more than an
overzealous ruffian. Elbryan didn't know exactly where he might fit in to such a
private affair, but he expected that he and the fat monk -- and likely the
deadly stranger, as well -- had not seen the last of one another.

CHAPTER 34
Justice

Brother Avelyn was not overly concerned when he returned to his room to find
that Jill was not about. The woman had mentioned her plans to walk to the valley
beyond the north slope, and the monk was confident that Jill could take care of
herself. In their weeks together, it seemed to Avelyn that Jill looked after him
more than he protected her.
So the monk, exhausted from fighting and then curing the stranger's
magical poisoning, his mind heavy with drink, plopped down on his bed and was
soon snoring loudly. His dreams were not content, though, not with the prospects
of a magic-wielding assassin nearby. Likely, the man was in no way connected to
Avelyn, but still the fugitive monk remained concerned.
He awoke late the next morning, to find himself alone in the room. Again,
he was not concerned, figuring that Jill had come in after he had fallen asleep,
and was long up and about, probably down in the common room having her
breakfast.
"Or lunch," the monk remarked aloud with a self-deprecating chuckle. "Ho,
ho, what!"
When he got downstairs, though, Avelyn saw no sign of Jill; indeed,
Belster O'Comely informed him that he had not seen the woman all night. "Perhaps
she found better company to keep," the innkeeper said snidely, leaning on the
broom he was using to sweep up the remnants of the previous night's activities.
"Indeed would Jill be better off away from one as mad as I," Avelyn
replied, wincing with every word, for his head was pounding. The monk had long
ago noted, with complete frustration, that the hematite, powerful as it was,
could do little to relieve a hangover.
Avelyn ate a light meal, then shuffled outside and promptly regurgitated
it. He felt better after. The day was cool and gray, the sky spitting light snow
every so often. "Oh, where are you, girl?" Avelyn asked loudly, more frustrated
than afraid. The question would have to wait, though, for the monk made his
weary way back to his room and went back to bed.
He didn't wake up again until the next morning, to discover, once more,
that Jill was nowhere to be found. Now Avelyn was indeed growing fearful; it
wasn't like Jill to disappear for so long without forewarning him or without
finding some way to contact him. That, combined with the presence of this magic-
wielding assassin, surely concerned the monk. Perhaps the incident in the common
room was no accident. Perhaps the monastery was on his trail. Had they caught
him at last, up here in the most remote corner of Honce-the-Bear? And had Jill
paid dearly for Avelyn's crimes?
He went to speak with Belster again, and, after hearing from the innkeeper
that Jill still had not been seen, Avelyn begged the innkeeper to tell him how
he might locate the stranger who had shuffled him out of the fight.
"The ranger?" Belster asked incredulously, and from his tone, it was
obvious to Avelyn that few inquired as to this man's whereabouts.
 "If that is what he calls himself," Avelyn replied.
"He calls himself Elbryan," Belster explained, "to me, at least, though to
others he carries another title. And he's one of the rangers, do not doubt." He
saw that the term held no meaning for Avelyn. "Some say they're elf trained,
others that they're merely misfits who find some comfort in thinking themselves
better than anyone else, walking their vigilant patrols, protecting all the land
-- not that there's any need for protection, of course."
"Of course," Avelyn politely echoed. He found that he was beginning to
like this man called Elbryan more and more with every word. "Where might I find
this ranger, then?" the monk pressed.
Belster's shrug was surely sincere. "Here and there," he replied. "Walks
the woods from here to End-o'-the-World, from what I'm told."
Avelyn's expression soured and he looked down at the bar. "What of the
other stranger?" he asked. "The small mysterious man who fought so well?"
Belster's face screwed up. "There are many strangers in Dundalis this
season," he answered. "And all of them fight well, else the forest would have
taken them by now!"
"The small and agile man," Avelyn tried to clarify, "the one who battled
Elbryan so fiercely."
Belster nodded his recognition. "He was in here again last night," the
innkeeper explained. "No fighting this time."

Avelyn took a deep breath and cursed himself for sleeping the afternoon
and all the night through while a potential clue to Jill's whereabouts was right
below him.
"Direct me, then," the monk said at last. "Point me in the most likely
direction where I might find Elbryan."
Again Belster shrugged, then he considered the fact that every time he had
seen Elbryan enter Dundalis, it was down the north road. He pointed to the
north. "That way," he declared, "up and over the slope, through the vale, and
turn west."
Avelyn automatically looked that way, though of course, all he could see
was the north wall of the Howling Sheila. He nodded as he considered the words,
glad for them. Traveling north, he might find Elbryan, it would seem, and he
would also be able to search for signs of his dear Jill.
He set off after a quick meal, huffing and puffing up the forested slope,
then, after a long pause spent staring down at the stark pines and white ground,
he started down the back side of the ridge, into the valley, angling northwest.
There were no signs to be found -- Brother Justice had made certain of
that -- and oblivious Avelyn passed by within thirty feet of the concealed
entrance to the cave that now served as Jill's prison.
She had not been treated badly . . . until Brother Justice had returned,
the night before last, in a foul mood and visibly bruised, to find that she had
nearly escaped her tight bonds. Then the monk had beaten her severely and had
subsequently tied her up so tightly that her hands and feet were now completely
numb.
When she wouldn't -- couldn't -- tell him anything about the staff-
wielding stranger who had intervened in the inn, the ferocious monk had beaten
her again, and now one of her eyes was swollen closed.
Brother Justice had spent all that next day with her; talking mostly to
himself about how he might get word to the fat monk that he held her captive.
Then the assassin had gone out; Jill knew that his plan still was not fully
clear and that he was simply searching for more information. Now, with a gray
morning fast turning to midday outside, Brother Justice had not returned.
Jill hoped that Avelyn had killed him; Jill, who could not possibly get
out of the bindings and gag that the monk had put on her this time, hoped that
Avelyn had first forced the man to disclose her whereabouts!
 To Avelyn, who had lived all of his life in the more populous and defined
central region of Honce-the-Bear, and who had lately. traveled the breadth of
the land along well-defined roads, with clear landmarks and signposts, the
prospects of finding the ranger had not initially seemed dismal. It wasn't until
Avelyn got deep into the wide forest, where the view varied little from
direction to direction, where the landmarks were so much more subtle, that he
understood the true scope of his hunt. The distance from Youmaneff to St.-Mere-
Abelle was over two hundred miles, the distance from Dundalis to End-o'-the-
World but two score, yet, given the winding trails' and the areas where there
were no trails at all, Avelyn soon realized that he would have had a better
chance of finding the ranger had he been pursuing the man in the miles from his
home to the abbey.
He wandered in circle, taking care to note the direction of the sun as it
slipped behind the gray canopy, looking for some sign. Of course Elbryan,
trained by, the elves, left, little or no trail at all, and Avelyn's frustration
steadily mounted. He wasn't even sure, after all, that Elbryan had left Dundalis
in this direction.
Thus, by midday, the monk was ready to give up the hunt. He would return
to Dundalis -- and perhaps Jill would be there waiting for him -- and then take
the more conventional road through Weedy Meadow to End-o'-the-World. There was
simply no possibility, he now understood, that he would find the ranger in this
forest.
But Avelyn was no ranger, and this was not his domain, and while he had no
chance of locating Elbryan, the ranger had little trouble finding him.
The monk was huffing and puffing along a flat trail, arching around the
base of a hillock, when he first heard the hooves. He scrambled for some brush,
thinking to hide, and then, when that seemed futile, he fumbled about his
magical stones, trying to sort out some defensive measures.
A moment later, Avelyn relaxed as a powerful black stallion thundered by.
"No rider," the monk said aloud, mocking his own worries. "Ho, ho, what!"
"But a beautiful horse nonetheless," came a remark from right behind and
above him. "Would you not agree?"
Avelyn froze in place, a lump rising in his throat. He turned slowly to
see the ranger crouched in the brush along the side of the hillock, just a few
feet back. "H-how did you --" the monk stammered. "I mean, you were there all
along?"
Elbryan shook his head and smiled.
"But how?"
"You were busy listening to the horse," the ranger explained.
Avelyn glanced back the other way to see the stallion standing tall and
pawing the ground, looking at him and Elbryan with eyes that seemed too
intelligent for such a creature.
"His name is Symphony,"' Elbryan explained.
"I am not well acquainted with horses," Avelyn admitted, "but he seems a
wonder."
Elbryan uttered a soft clicking sound, and Symphony responded by lifting
his ears and nickering. The stallion pawed the ground once more, then thundered
away back along the trail.
"You will have a hard time catching that one again!" Avelyn blurted,
trying to ease his own tension. He looked back at Elbryan. "Ho, ho, what!"
Elbryan didn't blink and the ranger's lack of interest stole the bubbly
grin from Avelyn's face.
"Well, yes," the monk began uncomfortably. "Why am I here, then, you would
like to know. Of course, of course."
Elbryan squatted perfectly still, arms across his bent legs, fingers
locked together, his gaze fixed upon the man.
 "Well . . . to find you, yes, yes," Avelyn finally explained, finding his
wits against that uncompromising stare. "Of course, yes, I came into the forest
looking for the one they call the ranger."
Elbryan gave a slight nod, prompting Avelyn to continue.
"Well, it is about the fight, of course," he said. "About the man,
actually, the one who tried for me but poisoned you."
Elbryan nodded; this visit wasn't totally unexpected, since the stealthy
fighter from the Howling Sheila was still in the region, as was. this monk whom
Elbryan believed the assassin's target. Elbryan suspected that the mad friar
would need help, and suspected, too, that he would find little among the folk of
Dundalis.
"He attacked you again?" the ranger asked.
"No -- no," Avelyn stammered. "Well, yes, actually, or he might have. I
cannot be sure."
Elbryan sighed wearily.
"It is my companion, of course," the nervous monk went on. "Beautiful
young woman, and a fighter, too. But she is gone, nowhere to be found, and I am
afraid --"
"You should be afraid," Elbryan replied. "That was no ordinary brawler in
the common room the other night."
"The magical poison," Avelyn reasoned.
"The way he moved," Elbryan corrected. "He was a warrior, a true warrior,
long trained in the art of battle."
Avelyn nodded enthusiastically, but the ranger's words only heightened his
fear that this was indeed no coincidental attack, that the fighting monks of the
Abellican Church were after him.
"You must tell me of this man," Elbryan said, "everything you know."
"I do not know anything," Avelyn replied in exasperation.
"Then tell me everything that you suspect," the ranger demanded. "If he
has your friend, then you need my help -- help I willingly give, but only if you
remain forthright with me."
Avelyn nodded again, glad for the words. Elbryan rose and moved down to
the trail, Avelyn following close behind.
"I do not even know your name," the monk-remarked, though he remembered
the name that Belster had given to this man.
"I am El --" the ranger began reflexively, but he caught himself and
looked hard at the monk, the first man who had actively sought out his help
since he had left Andur'Blough Inninness, the first man who would admit that he
needed the ranger's assistance. "I am Nightbird," Elbryan said evenly.
Avelyn cocked an eyebrow at that curious title, not the response he had
expected. Whatever the man's reasons for offering a different title were not
important, Avelyn decided, and so he accepted the name without further question.
The pair walked back toward Dundalis then, Avelyn telling Elbryan his suspicions
about the pursuit from the church. Of course, the conversation grew
uncomfortable for Avelyn when the ranger asked why St.-Mere-Abelle might be
after the monk, and Avelyn had not the time nor the inclination to explain all
the events that had led to his fateful decision. How does one justify murder and
theft, after all? Elbryan didn't press the point, however; at that time, all
that truly seemed relevant was that Avelyn's companion was missing, possibly
kidnapped by a man the ranger knew to be dangerous.
And Avelyn's description of his companion, added to the fact that the monk
hinted that they had come to Dundalis for her benefit, gave the ranger much to
think about.
The hunt began soon after, Elbryan searching hard to find some trail
leading out of Dundalis, while Avelyn inquired of Belster and some other patrons
in the Howling Sheila whether the stranger had returned to the inn today.
 Their answers came near dusk, when Avelyn returned to his room to find a
note pinned to his bedding. It was short and to the point, confirming the monk's
worst fears. If Avelyn wanted to save his companion, he was to travel to the
slope overlooking the pine valley, alone, and wait at an appointed spot.
He showed the note to Elbryan down in the Howling Sheila's common room,
the pair ignoring the many derisive remarks aimed at them by the early customers
there.
"Go, then," the ranger bade the monk.
"And you will be there?"
Elbryan nodded.
"But it says that I have to go alone," the monk protested.
"To our enemy, you will seem alone," Elbryan assured him, and, after
considering this man beside him, after recalling the fact that this one called
Nightbird had moved to within five feet of him without his ever knowing it,
Avelyn nodded his agreement, took back the note, and started out of town.
All the way, the monk fumbled with his pack of gemstones, then, on sudden
intuition, he stored all but three -- graphite, hematite, and protective
malachite -- in the nook of a tree. If his suspicions were correct, this man had
come for him, but even more for the stones. If Avelyn carried them with him, and
the dangerous warrior managed to wrest them away, then the monk would have no
bargaining power with which to save himself and even more important, to save his
dear Jill.
At the appointed place, a bare spot on the side of an otherwise full-
branched pine tree some twenty feet below the ridge, Avelyn did not have to wait
for long.
"I see that you decided to follow my instructions, Brother Avelyn," came
an all-too-familiar voice. "Very good."
Quintall! It was Quintall, Avelyn knew at once, and the monk felt as if
the very ground were about to. rush up and swallow him -- and he almost hoped
that it would. The monastery, the Order, was after him, and there would be no
corner of the world far enough away, no shadows dark enough to hide him.
"I had little faith that a thief and murderer would be so honorable as to
come to the aid of a friend," the voice went on.
Avelyn glanced all about nervously, wondering where Nightbird might be,
wondering if the ranger was close enough to hear those words, and if he was, how
he might now feel about this man he had chosen to help.
"I have her," the voice teased. "Come to me."
The reminder of Jill's predicament bolstered the monk's failing courage.
Perhaps his Abellican brothers would get him, Avelyn decided, but they would not
harm Jill. Slipping the graphite all about the fingers of one anxious hand, the
monk followed the direction of the voice, soon discerning the dark rim of a cave
opening and the shadowy form of a man inside. He went in as the form retreated,
to find a fairly substantial cave, this one chamber -- and it seemed plausible
to Avelyn that the place had more than one chamber larger than his room at the
Howling Sheila.
Quintall stood at the back of the dimly lit cave, leaning easily against
the wall, flicking flint against steel until a light caught on the torch he had
propped there.
When the light flickered to life, when it fully illuminated the face of
the man Avelyn had known all those years, the man who had traveled to
Pimaninicuit beside Avelyn and knew the truth of the stones, Avelyn was nearly
overcome with grief. All that he had lost his home, his companions, and most
important, his faith assaulted Avelyn; all the memories of the good times at
St.-Mere-Abelle, his instruction with Master Jojonah, the revelations about the
sacred stones, the studying of the charts, the revealed mysteries of the magic,
came rushing back to him.
 And then they were buried beneath the subsequent memories: the death of
Thagraine, of the boy who had foolishly gone onto Pimaninicuit, of all the crew
of the Windrunner, of Dansally, of Siherton.
"Quintall," Avelyn muttered.
"No more," the other monk replied.
"Why have you come?" Avelyn asked, hoping against reason that this man,
too, had deserted the Order and was as much a renegade as he:
Quintall's cackle rocked him. "I am Brother Justice," the man replied
harshly, "seat to retrieve what was stolen." Quintall snorted. "I hardly
recognized you, fat Avelyn. You have lost all, so it seems, and have more than
doubled your size. Always you took your physical training lightly!"
Avelyn steeled himself against the insults. It was true, he had taken on
more than a few bad habits, drinking too much and eating too much, and the only
exercise or martial training he now performed was in the fights he inspired.
"Did you not believe that we would discover your treachery?" Brother
Justice went on. "Did you think that you could murder a master of St.-Mere-
Abelle and steal such a treasure, and then walk free for the rest of your days?"
"There is more --"
"There is no more!" Quintall shouted. "You fell my former brother. All
that remains for you is the pit of hell. I shall have the stones!"
"And my life," Avelyn reasoned, making no move.
"And your life," cold Brother Justice confirmed. "You forfeited that when
Master Siherton went over the wall."
"I forfeited that when I refused to accept the perversion of the Order!"
Avelyn shot back, drawing some courage with words of conviction. "As Brother
Pellimar --"
"Silence!" Brother Justice ordered. "Your life is forfeit, I assure you,
and no explanation is worth the time to utter. I will have the stones, as well,
but if you hand them to me without battle and accept the fate you deserve, then
I will let the woman go free. On my word."
Avelyn snorted at that. "Is your word as solid a thing as the word of the
masters you serve?" he asked. "Is your gold but an illusion, meant to coax a
ship into waters where it might be destroyed?"
Quintall's expression showed that he neither understood nor cared about
what Avelyn was saying, showed Avelyn beyond any doubts that the man was single-
minded and would not be swayed That left the fat monk two choices: to surrender
the stones and his life and hope that Quintall was speaking truthfully, or to
fight.
He didn't trust the man, not at all. Quintall would kill him after he got
the stones, without doubt; then he would kill Jill, that there would be no
witnesses. Avelyn believed that in his heart. He took his hand, and the
graphite, out of his pocket, pointing it in Quintall's direction.
"You would forfeit the life of a friend?" Brother Justice asked and then
he laughed again.
"I would spare your own life," Avelyn replied, "in exchange for the
woman."
The man's laughter continued and it gave Avelyn pause. Quintall above all
others understood Avelyn's proficiency with the magic stones. Quintall should
have understood that Avelyn could loose a bolt of.' lightning with that piece of
graphite that would fry the man where he stood. And yet Quintall, this man who
called himself Brother Justice, this extension of St.-Mere-Abelle's vicious
order, was not afraid.
Avelyn turned his thoughts away from the man, to the chamber Quintall had
chosen for this encounter. He felt the emanations, the subtle pulse of magic,
and when he looked then into the stone he held, when he realized that the powers
of the graphite seemed far, far away, he understood.
 "Sunstone," Quintall confirmed, seeing the expression. "There will be
little magic used in this cave, foolish Brother Avelyn."
Avelyn chewed his lip, looking for an out. Back in St.-Mere-Abelle, he had
seen Master Siherton create a magical dead zone while he and several others had
tried to discern the powers of the giant amethyst crystal. Only the most
powerful magics could function within such an area, and even then, their powers
were greatly diminished.
Avelyn might be able to effect a lightning stroke within this chamber, but
he doubted that it would do much more than anger Quintall even more.
Quintall held out his hand. "The stones," he said calmly, "for the woman's
life."
"The woman is no part of this," Elbryan declared, slipping into the cave
to stand beside Avelyn. "I know not of Brother Avelyn's crimes, but you have
offered no charge against the woman."
Quintall's expression grew suddenly grave at the sight of the imposing
ranger. "Treachery again!" he growled at Avelyn. "I should have expected as much
from the likes of Avelyn Desbris."
"No treachery," Elbryan insisted, "but justice."
"What do you know of it?" Brother Justice insisted. "What do you know of
this stranger, this mad friar, who has come into your midst, begging aid? Did he
tell you that he was a murderer?"
"And is the woman a murderer?" Elbryan asked calmly.
"No," Avelyn answered when the other monk hesitated.
"A thief ?" asked Elbryan.
"No!" Avelyn said determinedly. "She has committed no crimes. As for my
own, I will speak of them, openly and honestly; and when all the account is
told, let someone other than a monk of St.-Mere-Abelle serve as judge."
Brother Justice narrowed his eyes and glared at the monk. Of course, he
had no intention of allowing any court. He was judge, jury, and executioner,
assigned by the Father Abbot. "You were a fool to follow Avelyn to this place,"
he said to Elbryan, "for now your life is forfeit, as is Avelyn's, as is the
woman's."
"More justice?" Elbryan started to ask, but his question was lost as
Brother Justice spun about, pulling aside some hanging vines that blocked the
entrance to another chamber. A flick of the monk's wrist sent a silver item
flying and from within the deeper chamber came a gurgled groan.
"Go to her!" Elbryan cried to Avelyn, and the ranger leaped forward to
meet the monk, Hawkwing spinning to a ready position.
"Not by surprise this time," Brother Justice sneered, setting himself in a
crouch. He tried to keep near the door, to prevent Avelyn from getting to the
woman, but Elbryan's attack was too fierce, too straightforward. The ranger came
rushing in, accepting a punishing blow to the chest but managing to duck his
shoulder low against the monk and drive the man back a step. Brother Justice dug
in, locking himself in place until Avelyn came roaring in at Elbryan's back, the
monk's three-hundred-pound frame blasting the two combatants away.
Elbryan took three quick punches -- two to the chest and then one to the
face that nearly sent him down -- before he managed to break the clench and get
away from the dangerous monk.
Facing the man squarely, the ranger wasn't quite sure what to make of him.
Brother Justice turned sidelong and lifted his leading foot, drawing it slowly
up his balanced leg, arms lifting as well, as certain snakes might rise before
the strike.

It was a dagger, small but nasty, and thrown perfectly to hit the gagged
and bound woman right in the throat, just under her jawbone. Her main artery
severed, blood was pumping wildly from the wound, already forming a puddle
around her slumped form.
 "Jill, Jill! Oh, my Jill!" Avelyn wailed, rushing to her. He pulled the
dagger free, his hands going to the wound, trying futilely to stem the flow. She
had little time left, he knew. Her skin felt cold.
Avelyn pulled out his hematite, then remembered the anti-magic shield that
Quintall had constructed. He thought to carry Jill from this place; but realized
immediately that she would be dead before he ever got her outside.
He clutched his hematite in both hands, putting them to the wound, putting
his lips against his hands, praying with all his will, with all his heart. If
there was a God above, if these stones were indeed sacred, then the hematite
must work!

The monk's fighting prowess was indeed remarkable, his movements quick and
fluid, his frame always in perfect balance. He was too fast for most humans,
dizzying them with winding, sweeping feints before the lightning strike killed
them.
But Quintall, for all his training, was no faster than Tuntun or Belli'mar
Juraviel, or any of the elves that had trained Elbryan, and when he snapped a
strike from that snakelike pose, thinking to tear out Elbryan's throat and move
on to finish his business with Avelyn, the monk's expression showed he was
surprised to find his extended fingers hit only air, while Elbryan's staff gave
him a wicked smack on the elbow. With incredible flexibility, both physical and
mental, the monk adjusted, rolling his pained arm down across the staff to open
a hole in Elbryan's defenses, then snapping off a quick blow with his other
hand, followed by a kick that caught the ranger inside the knee and nearly
buckled his leg. Elbryan countered by letting go of his staff with his top hand,
rolling it under the blocking arm, then grabbing it and sweeping low for the
monk's supporting leg.
Brother Justice hopped over the swing, but was forced back.
The monk circled, a confident expression mounting.
Two running steps launched Brother Justice into a double kick. Elbryan
jammed one end of Hawkwing into the dirt and swept the staff powerfully across
in front of him, left to right, deflecting the blow. He stepped ahead with his
left foot then, continuing to turn as Brother Justice landed on his feet and
pivoted the other way. Elbryan dragged Hawkwing up and around, slapping a
backhand with the staff that connected squarely on the monk's lower back at the
same time Brother Justice let fly an elbow to the back of Elbryan's head.
The ranger reacted well, diving forward as the elbow connected, leaping
and tumbling over his staff as if it were a tree branch. He came back to his
feet and turned as Brother Justice spun around, the two men circling once more.
"I give you one more chance to leave," the monk offered, drawing a smile
from his adversary. That smug look by the ranger spurred the proud Quintall into
a charge. He skidded to a stop right before Elbryan, throwing a vicious overhead
chop.
Up came Hawkwing in a solid horizontal block. Anticipating the following
moves, Elbryan snapped his left hand down, taking the power from a right cross,
then stepped in closer, putting his right leg inside the monk's left, defeating
an attempted kick. Brother Justice wriggled his left arm about the staff,
reaching for Elbryan's face, but the ranger pulled the staff and the arm out
wide, moving even closer to the monk, then drove his forehead hard into the
monk's face.
Brother Justice grabbed hard onto the staff with both hands, as much to
support himself as to prevent any attacks. Elbryan let go with his left hand at
that same moment and snapped off a series of short, heavy jabs into Brother
Justice's face.
The monk was dazed; Elbryan seized the moment. He grabbed the staff again,
hard, and tugged it in close, pushed it away to the end of his reach, then
pulled it in again. Brother Justice should have let go, but he was fighting to
clear his thoughts. Following the tug, he came rushing in close to Elbryan, and
his face met the ranger's forehead again.
Still dazed, still hanging on, the monk felt the change in his adversary's
angle as Elbryan fell back to the floor, pulling hard, taking the monk right
over him. Both his feet planted squarely in Brother Justice's belly, the ranger
heaved him right over, sent him flying, to land heavily at the base of the
chamber's hard wall.
Pure rage drove the monk on, forced the pain away. He rolled and came up
fast but not fast enough. His defenses were not in place when Elbryan grabbed
his staff down low with both hands
and swept it across mightily, smashing in the side of Brother Justice's face.
The monk went with the blow, turning to a dead run that launched him out the
cave's outer opening, into the daylight.
Elbryan was quick to follow, but by the time he got out, the monk was many
strides ahead, in a full run. Hardly thinking of the motion, knowing only that
he could not lose this advantage against so deadly an adversary, Elbryan popped
the feathered tip onto his Weapon and bent it low, quickly setting the
bowstring. He ran ahead a dozen strides, seeking an angle to best view the top
of the ridge, where the monk was fleeing.
Brother Justice came into view for only a split second, darting between
two trees. Elbryan's arrow caught him in the calf, right below the knee, and
with a howl of pain the monk tumbled sidelong, gaining momentum as he rolled
along the steep slope.
Elbryan scrambled to get to the spot, saw the monk land heavily atop one
rocky outcropping and then tumble right over it, a fifteen-foot plummet to bard
stone.
Elbryan groaned sympathetically, running to get in view of the man once
more. He spotted the monk from a distance, lying among the boulders, one leg
bent back up under him, one arm across his chest, the other out straight, then
turned back under, obviously broken. The man, gasping for breath, reached inside
the fold's of his clothing and produced something that Elbryan could not discern
from this distance.
The ranger halted as the monk suddenly glowed, limned in blackish flames.
Elbryan's mouth dropped open as the monk's features twisted, twisted, as his
face blurred and seemed to double, and as that second face stretched grotesquely
and pulled free of the man's corporeal form, his visible spirit ripping out of
that flesh and blood coil, down to the object he clutched in his hand.
There came a bright flash and then the monk lay still, low flames licking
his lifeless body.
"'Nightbird!" came a cry from the cave, and Elbryan, thoroughly shaken,
scampered back within.

He was careening, flying fast above the forest, across the lakes, over the
lands where the snow had already settled deep -- too fast for his senses, too
fast for the man to understand. The pain was gone, that much he knew. Then he
came upon the mountains, whipping through passes, over peaks, to a plateau he
had seen before above a vast encampment between the black arms of a smoking
mountain. Then came the dizzying ride through tight tunnels, cutting left,
right, down and down again to a stone wall creased by a single crack, through
that crack, the stone rushing past him so close that his mind screamed out in
terror.
Then he was in the room between the columns before the obsidian throne.
Quintall stood on semitransparent legs, caught halfway between the mortal
and spirit worlds. He stood on the legs of a wraith facing the dactyl demon.
It was the end, the end of hope, of any pretense of godliness. It was the
truth, the dark-shining truth, the reality of what he had become, the only
honest end of the road upon which his Abellican masters had set him. It was the
dactyl demon, Bestesbulzibar -- he knew its name! -- in all its horrible beauty,
in all its magnificence.
Quintall, Brother Justice, fell to his wraith knees before the dactyl,
bowed his head, and spoke.
"Master."

Elbryan took the torch with him as he pushed aside the vines and entered
the inner chamber. Avelyn squatted on the floor, cradling the woman. Her wound
was closed and she was very much alive, though thoroughly exhausted, as was
Avelyn, who had gone into the hematite, who had, by sheer willpower and faith,
fought past the sunstone barrier, fought his way into the healing magic.
The monk asked about Quintall, but Elbryan didn't hear him. Avelyn shifted
on the floor and tried to rise, nearly toppling for the effort, but Elbryan
didn't notice. All that the ranger saw was the woman, all that he heard was her
breathing. His eyes roamed over her -- the thick mop of blond hair, the blue
eyes, shining in the dim light, despite her weary condition, and her lips, those
thick and wonderful lips, those so soft lips.
He could hardly breathe, could hardly keep the strength to stand, all his
thoughts, all his energy, tied up in a single word, a name he had not spoken for
so very long. "Pony."

CHAPTER 35
Escape?

Pony.
The name hit the young woman like a thunderbolt, spoken with such familiar
inflection. She watched, mesmerized, as the strong young man eased toward her,
his green eyes growing misty.
"Pony," Elbryan said again, and he was stating the name, not asking. "My
Pony, I thought..."
He slipped down to his knees before her, closed his eyes, and tried hard
to steady his breathing. When, after a long while, he opened his eyes and looked
again on this image from his past, he found that her expression was more
confusion than anything else.
"Do you not remember me?" Elbryan asked, and the question alone, the need
to ask it, seemed to pain him greatly.
The woman didn't know how to respond. She did remember the man -- he was
there, prodding somewhere in the back of her mind, screaming at her to let him
out. The way he said the name, her name -- her nickname, she suddenly knew, for
her name was not Pony, nor Jill, but Jilseponie! -- was so familiar; surely she
had heard this man call her Pony before in just that way.
"Give her time, I beg, Elbryan," Brother Avelyn remarked.
That was it. Elbryan. The name hit Pony as hard as Brother Justice ever
could, jarred her, sent her thoughts spinning back across the span of years.
"When you ran from me on the slope, running into burning Dundalis, I
thought you lost to me forever," the ranger went on, spurred by the sudden
sparkle of recognition that came to the woman's blue eyes. "My Pony. How I
searched! I found your mother and father, my own, our friends. Carley dan Aubrey
died in my own arms. And I would have died, too, trapped by a fomorian giant and
a band of goblins, had it not been for --" He stopped, realizing that he was
going too fast for the poor young woman, realizing that he had overwhelmed her.
But it was indeed his Pony; Elbryan knew that beyond any doubt. He moved
closer to her then, put his face barely inches from hers.
"Elbryan," she said softly, lifting a weary arm to stroke the ranger's
face. All those scattered images in her head spun and dropped together, like a
vast puzzle, all the pieces magically falling together. She remembered him as if
she had never forgotten him, remembered their talks and walks, remembered their
friendship, and more than that. In her mind, she saw him moving closer to her,
to kiss her.
But then he was Connor, poor Connor, and Pony was suffocating, reaching
for the hearth, grabbing a glowing ember.
When she shook the image away, she found that Elbryan had backed away from
her and was looking to Brother Avelyn for answers.
"We have much to discuss," the monk said.
Elbryan nodded and, looked back at her, as beautiful now -- more
beautiful! -- than he remembered her.
"Brother Quintall?" Avelyn asked.
Elbryan looked at him curiously.
"Brother Justice?" Avelyn clarified. "The hunter from my own Order, sent
to kill me and to kill my friends, do not doubt."
"He is dead," Elbryan replied evenly.
"Take me to him."
Elbryan nodded to Avelyn. "Why did he come after you?" the ranger asked,
the question that Avelyn knew he would be forced to answer truthfully. He looked
from Elbryan to Pony, then back to the ranger.
"Not all of his claims were untrue, I fear," the monk admitted. "I will
explain all when we are far from this place, and then I will accept your
judgment," Avelyn offered, squaring his shoulders. "Judgment from both of you.
You decide if Brother Quintall's mission was truly one that deserved the name of
Justice, if Brother Avelyn, the mad friar, is truly an outlaw."
"I am no judge," the ranger remarked.
"Then I am a doomed thing," Avelyn replied. "For the only ones who presume
to judge me have made their decision, and it is based on greed and fear and in
no way on justice."
Elbryan stared long and hard at Avelyn. Finally he nodded, and he helped
both Avelyn and Pony to their feet, then led them out of the cave and to the
spot where Brother Justice had fallen.
The monk's body was hardly recognizable, a charred, smoldering thing.
"How did this happen?" Elbryan asked, inspecting the corpse but finding no
indication of what had caused it to burst into flame.
"Here is your answer," Avelyn explained, indicating the side of the
corpse, where one hand was nearly burned to ashes. On the ground beside the body
lay the ruined broach, its hematite core melted and misshapen, an elongated
black egg. Scattered around it were the small quartz crystals, blackened, some
stuck in the remains of the golden setting.
Avelyn scrutinized the broach carefully. "Its power is no more," he
announced after a few moments. "Somehow the magic of the hematite and the
crystals erupted when Quintall fell." Avelyn paused and considered his own
words. Had there been some contingency placed on the magic? he wondered. Avelyn
could feel the magical reverberations in the area and knew that some strong
energy had been released. Perhaps the stones served as a warning device to the
masters back in St.-Mere-Abelle, a signal that Quintall was dead, that Quintall
had failed. Or was the magic even stronger than that? Given the powers of
hematite, might this have been some transport for Quintall's soul?
Avelyn, who had spirit-walked, who had once possessed the body of another,
shuddered at the possibilities.
Elbryan continued to prod at the corpse, searching for clues. What he
found instead were two stones intact: a sunstone -- which did not surprise
Avelyn in the least -- and a carbuncle.
"That is how he trailed me across the country," Avelyn remarked, noting
the carbuncle. "It is a stone used to detect magic."
"And you have magic about you," Elbryan reasoned.
 "A great cache," Avelyn admitted. "Perhaps the greatest individual cache
in all the world."
"Stolen from St.-Mere-Abelle," said the ranger.
"Taken from those who did not deserve it, who abused it and brought only
misery from the God-given stones," Avelyn said firmly. "Find us a camp, my
friend. I will tell you my tale, in all detail, in all truth. You decide which
of us, myself or Quintall, deserves the title he carried."
When they arrived at Elbryan's camp, when the ranger and Pony settled
beside a fire, Avelyn did as promised. He told his tale, all of it, from the
journey to Pimaninicuit to the sinking of the Windrunner and the murder of
Dansally, to his escape from St.-Mere-Abelle and the death of Master Siherton.
It was the first time Avelyn had told his story, though he had hinted at many
parts of it to Jill over the course of their travels. It was the first time the
monk was able to purge his soul openly, to admit his crimes, if they were
crimes. When he finished, he seemed a miserable wretch indeed; his huge form had
wilted upon the hard ground, his eyes teary.
Pony went to him, loving him all the more, feeling a true kinship with the
man, feeling a great deal of pity, as well. She was sorry that Avelyn had been
forced to act as thief and killer, sorry that this gentle man -- and despite the
barroom brawls, Pony knew Avelyn to be a gentle man -- had been put into such an
uncompromising position.
Both of them looked at Elbryan after some time, fearing the ranger's
judgment. They saw only sympathy on his handsome face.
"I do not envy that whichkh you were forced to do," the ranger said
firmly. "Nor do I consider your actions criminal. You acted in self-defense,
always justifiable. You stole the stones because you rightly judged that they
were being abused."
Avelyn nodded, so glad to hear those words. "Then I must be on my way," he
announced unexpectedly. "Jill -- Pony, has found her way home, it would seem."
He put a hand to the woman's face, and his own brightened suddenly. "Ho, ho,
what!"
"She needs me no more," Avelyn finished.
"But does Brother Avelyn need her?" Elbryan asked.
The monk shrugged. "St.-Mere-Abelle will not give up the search, thus I
must keep on the move. I would not bring danger to my friends, now that I know
of it."
Elbryan looked hard into Pony's eyes, then the both of them burst into a
fit of laughter, as if the whole notion were perfectly ridiculous.
"You stay," Elbryan remarked, demanded. "Pony is home, 'tis true, and her
home is Avelyn's, unless I miss my guess."
"Her home is Avelyn's," she said firmly.
A light snow had begun to fall all across the forest, but it seemed to shy
from the ranger's camp, from the heat of the ranger's fire, from the warmth of
Brother Avelyn's newfound home.

Part Four
THE RANGER

How I desire to go to her, to be with her, that we might know again the peace
that was in our lives before that terrible day. How I want to hold Pony, to kiss
her, to tell her all my feelings, all my secrets, my pain, my hopes. To see Pony
now is to see what was and to wonder what might have been had the goblins not
come to Dundalis. To see Pony now is to ponder what other road might have been
before me -- might I have farmed the land and hunted, as Olwan my father did?
Would Pony and I be wed, perhaps with children?
 How would the world look to Elbryan had he not spent those years in
Andur'Blough Inninness?
But that is the problem, Uncle Mather. I cannot know, can only guess, and
I fear that any guess I make will be tainted by the observations of my current
life. Perhaps my life would have been better if God had presented me a different
path, one more like Olwan's. I wish all those folk of Dundalis -- my mother and
father, Pony's parents, and all the others -- had been spared their grim fate. I
wish with all my heart that the goblins had not come to Dundalis!
But where would that leave me? At peace, I suppose, and probably with
Pony, and that is a fate about which no man could complain.
Yet I refuse to dismiss or diminish my years with the Touel'alfar; those
elven friends helped to shape the man Elbryan. Those elven friends created
Nightbird, this ranger, hopefully for the betterment of the world and surely for
the betterment of me. Looking through the perspective of their shining eyes, I
have gained a newer and brighter appreciation of the world about me; one I would
never have known had the goblins not come to Dundalis, had the elves not rescued
me and taken me to their secret valley. Through that tragedy, I, Elbryan, have
come to know and love life all the more. Through that tragedy, I have become the
man I am, the man who can see the world through the vision of an elf as well as
the vision of a human.
That is my guilt, Uncle Mather, for why should I have been chosen, and not
another of Dundalis -- not Olwan or Shane McMichael, not Pony or Carley don
Aubrey. That is my guilt, and seeing Pony alive, so beautiful, so wonderful,
only heightens. my pain, reminds me of those who died, tempts me to ask what
might have been, and makes me wonder if I would indeed prefer that lost course.
It is only worse for poor Pony. The sight of me, of Dundalis, has brought
back to her memories long buried. I have seen her little in the few days since
Brother Avelyn and I rescued her from Quintall. She is avoiding me, I know, and
I do not begrudge her that.' She needs the time; she has seen again so much of
her lost past in so short a time.
Everyone in Dundalis died except the two of us. And we have continued from
that moment of tragedy, have grown strong and true, have found lives pleasing,
and, now that we are together again, the potential seems all the greater. Yet,
in our pleasures . . .
That is the guilt, Uncle Mather, our guilt. I cannot rescue Pony from the
pain of her memories, as she cannot rescue me from mine. I only hope that she
comes to accept our fate and that she desires to forge ahead in the best manner
that we may.
I knew it from the moment I saw her in that cave. I love her, Uncle
Mather, as I loved her that fateful day on the ridge above our home. I love her,
and all the world will be sweeter indeed if I may hold her in my arms and feel
her soft breath against my neck.
-ELBRYAN WYNDON

CHAPTER 36
Confrontation

"They think me madder still!" Brother Avelyn roared happily.

"Ho, ho, what!"
Elbryan looked at Bradwarden, and the centaur only shrugged, not about to
disagree with the volatile friar's estimation of himself.
"Cavorting with the likes of you, after all," Avelyn went on. "And, oh,
would they talk if they knew that I was dining with a centaur!"
"They would talk respectfully if they knew Bradwarden as I know him,"
Elbryan put in, "else, I fear the centaur would trample them."
Bradwarden swallowed a huge chunk of mutton and gave a great belch.
 "Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn howled, charmed by it all. The monk was feeling
better now, feeling more at home than he had since his earliest days in St.-
Mere-Abelle, since that innocent time before he had learned the truth of the
Abellican Order. In Elbryan, Avelyn had found a man he could honestly respect, a
stoic individual, wary of the very real dangers of the world, ready to fight
against evil and injustice. He had told his tale in full to the ranger, and the
ranger had judged him not according to the penned laws but by the true ideal of
justice.
Now Avelyn spent his nights in Dundalis or in Weedy Meadow or End-o'-the-
World, and his days in the forest with Elbryan and Pony -- and sometimes with
the ranger's more unusual friends, such as Bradwarden and that magnificent horse
Symphony. There was something right about it all to Avelyn, some sense of
godliness here that he had not felt in many years. His only lament was that Pony
seemed truly shaken by her return to this area. She spent little time with any
of them, preferring to walk alone, mostly near Dundalis. She was confronting her
past, the monk knew, and he was glad of that, though he wished he could be of
more help to the young woman.
Bradwarden took up his pipes then, following the meal with a mournful,
soulful tune that conjured in Avelyn images of the rolling hills, the
wheatfields, and grapevines of Youmaneff. He thought of his mother and father,
hoped that his father was still well. Of course, Jayson Desbris would not know
it, but he could rest well when thinking of his youngest son now.

On a hillock not so far away, Pony, too, heard the centaur's haunting
music. Her thoughts rolled back to the carefree days of her childhood, of her
times with Elbryan -- Elbryan! All those terrible images of that fateful day in
Dundalis remained with her, but somehow they were easier to deal with. She could
look at the tragedy rationally, and now, with Elbryan beside her, she was
beginning to come to terms with her fate.
Pony came to know that it was not simple terror and grief that had forced
her to bury those awful images, but guilt. She had lived, but everyone else, so
she thought, had perished. Why her?
Seeing another from her village, seeing dear Elbryan again, had allowed
Pony to remove some of that guilt. She knew the truth now, all of it, and she
was strong enough to accept that truth -- and on those occasions when she found
she was not strong enough, she knew Elbryan would be there for her, as she would
be there for him. For the first time in many years, Pony was not alone.

"You are not going into town this night?" Elbryan asked Avelyn, the monk
tarrying near to the fire.
"Jill -- Pony went into Dundalis," Avelyn clarified, "but I believe I will
spend this night in the forest."
"Cold wind and a hard ground," Elbryan warned, and indeed, winter was fast
approaching.
"Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn laughed. "You would not guess the hardships I have
endured, my friend. This round body does not tell of them."
Elbryan smiled and considered the monk, understanding there was indeed a
hardened frame beneath the soft exterior.
"No, I will stay this night," Avelyn went on. "I feel it is time for me to
begin repaying you the debt I owe."
"Debt?" Elbryan asked incredulously.
"I owe you my life, as does Pony."
"I followed the only course open to me," Elbryan replied.
"And glad I am that you did!" Avelyn snorted. "Ho, ho, what!"
Elbryan gave a smile and shook his head, entertained, as usual by the
complex man. "So you shall repay me with your company," the ranger reasoned.
 "Oh, more than that," the monk replied. "And I fear that if I offer too
much of my company, then I shall owe you all the more!"
Again came the laughter, but it died away quickly, Avelyn's face growing
suddenly serious. "Tell me of your horse," he bade the ranger.
"I have no horse."
"Symphony?"
"Symphony is not mine," Elbryan explained. "Symphony is free and belongs
to no man."
"All the better then!" said Avelyn. He fumbled about his robes, then with
his pouch.
Elbryan caught a glimpse within that pouch as Avelyn searched for a
certain stone, the ranger's jaw dropping low at the myriad sparkles, shimmering
brightly, magnificently, even in the light of the low fire. No wonder, then,
that the Abellican Church had come after Brother Avelyn!
Finally the monk found the stone he was looking for and held it up before
him: a turquoise.
"Is Symphony about?" the monk asked.
Elbryan nodded slowly, cautiously. "What magic do you intend for
Symphony?" he wanted to know.
Avelyn snorted. "Nothing the horse will not desire," he assured the
ranger.
They went off together into the night, finding Symphony in a moonlit
field, grazing calmly. Avelyn bade Elbryan to wait at field's edge, then the
monk walked slowly toward the horse, holding forth the stone and chanting
quietly.
Elbryan held his breath, not certain what the powerful Symphony might do.
The stallion had accepted the ranger, but Elbryan knew that to be an unusual
thing for proud and wild Symphony. If the stallion now bolted forward suddenly,
trampling the monk into the earth, Elbryan would not be surprised.
But Symphony did no such thing. The horse nickered quietly as Avelyn came
right up to him. The monk continued to chant -- it seemed to Elbryan as if he
were conversing with the horse -- and whatever he was saying, Symphony was
listening! After a long while, Avelyn motioned for the ranger to join him.
The monk was still whispering softly when Elbryan moved up beside him.
Symphony had gone perfectly still, his head raised high, his magnificent,
muscled chest presented openly to the two men.
Avelyn handed the turquoise to Elbryan. "Finish," he instructed.
Elbryan took the stone, having no idea what he should do with it. Before
he could begin to question the monk, he felt an urge, a calling. The ranger
looked up into Symphony's dark eyes, understanding suddenly that it was the
stallion calling to him! Elbryan blinked in disbelief, then looked back at the
turquoise and realized that its glow was not reflected moonlight but its own
inner light, a radiating magic; only then did Elbryan realize how warm the stone
had grown.
"Touch it to the horse's breast," the monk instructed.
Elbryan moved his hand slowly toward the stallion. Symphony closed his
eyes, seeming as if in a deep trance. The ranger put the stone right against the
horse's breast, right in the "V" where the muscles of the powerful shoulders
came together. He held it there for a long time, while Avelyn took up a louder,
more insistent chant that sounded as a song.
Elbryan was hardly conscious of the stone's action, and Symphony seemed
perfectly at ease, as the turquoise burrowed into the horse's flesh, as the
stone set itself perfectly upon Symphony's breast.
The ranger retracted his hand suddenly, his expression horrified as he
regarded the stone, which seemed now a natural part of the horse. Avelyn stopped
his chanting and put a comforting hand on Elbryan's shoulder; Symphony opened
his dark eyes and seemed perfectly calm, pained not at all.
 "What have I done?" Elbryan asked. "What have you done?"
Avelyn shrugged. "Not exactly sure," he admitted. "But the stone's magic
was for animals, of that I am certain."
"To heal?" Elbryan asked. "To strengthen?"
"Perhaps both," the monk replied. Avelyn's face crinkled as he tried to
sort out a feasible explanation. "You see, I do not always know what magic the
stones will provide," he began. "They call to me; they tell me what to do."
"Then you have no way of knowing what we just did to Symphony," Elbryan
reasoned, his tone showing clearly that he was not pleased. Symphony was no toy
for experiments, after all! "Beneficial or baneful?"
"Beneficial," Avelyn said with all confidence and without hesitation. "Ho,
ho, what! I told you that I meant to repay a debt."
"But you do not even know what you did!" Elbryan protested.
"But I know the nature of what the stone did," Avelyn explained.
"Turquoise is the stone of animals, a true blessing of beasts. I suspect that
your bond with Symphony has been heightened, that you and the stallion are more
deeply and profoundly joined now."
"Master and beast?" Elbryan demanded, clearly not happy with the prospect.
"Friend and friend," Avelyn corrected. "Symphony cannot be owned, so you
said, and I would not presume to break this most wonderful stallion's spirit!
Ho, ho, what! Never that! Trust, my friend, hold faith in the stones, in the
gifts of God. You will soon learn the truth of this magic that Symphony now
holds, and you will be pleased, as will Symphony, do not doubt."
As if in answer, Symphony reared suddenly and whinnied, then came back
down and thundered about the pair in a tight circle, hooves rending the turf.
The stallion showed no sign of pain or even agitation other than a sudden
elation.
Elbryan felt that emotion very clearly. It was as if he could read
Symphony's mind, and not just by the visible movements of the stallion's body.
He read the stallion's thoughts!
Elbryan looked at Avelyn, the monk smiling widely. "Do you `hear' them?"
the ranger asked, for lack of a better word. "Do you know what the stallion is
feeling?"
"I was but the mediator," Avelyn explained, "the facilitator, ho, ho,
what! I brought forth the stone's magic, but you are the one who used it, my
friend. You and Symphony, and now you two are joined more closely. But I do
indeed know the stallion's thoughts," the monk finished with a mischievous
smile. "I see them clearly on your face!"
Symphony stopped abruptly and reared again, calling into the night. Then
the horse thundered away out of the field, out of sight.
But Elbryan knew where the horse was; if he concentrated, the ranger could
visualize the very ground before Symphony's pounding hooves. He did so then, and
saw and felt the rush of the wind and the night as the horse raced through the
darkened forest. And it went deeper than that; the ranger came to perceive the
world about Symphony through the eyes of the magnificent horse. Only then did
Elbryan truly appreciate the intelligence of the animal, filtered through a
different perspective, perhaps, but no less intense than his own. The horse knew
things simply, without the interference of reason that was the domain of men,
elves, and the higher races. What was, in the horse's eyes, simply was with no
interpretation, an efficient and perfect way of perception that sorted through
emotion, that lived in the present without concern for the future or
interference from the past.
Perfect, simple, beautiful.
After a long while, Elbryan opened his eyes and looked at Avelyn. He
nodded his appreciation, for he understood already that this gift Avelyn had
given to him and to Symphony was as profound and precious as the bow Joycenevial
had crafted for him.
 Elbryan put his hand on Avelyn's shoulder and nodded again, for he could
find no words to properly thank the man.
Avelyn went into Dundalis the next morning, passing Pony on the trail as
she made her way back to the ranger's camp. The monk started to ask the woman if
she wanted him to accompany her, but, in studying the expression on Pony's face,
Avelyn thought the better of it and continued on his way. Soon after, he was
whistling gaily, for upon some closer examination, Avelyn had indeed come to
understand the expression on the young woman's face.
Pony found Elbryan burying the embers of his fire. She came into the camp
quietly and moved right across the way from him without a word.
Elbryan stood tall, looking at her. They were alone, completely alone, for
the first time, and so many questions came to each of them that they remained
silent, just started circling each other, as combatants might, as a stalking
panther might when confronted with another of its own kind.
Pony's eyes reflected an intensity Elbryan had never before encountered, a
hunger, perhaps, or a rage -- some inner passion that kept her from blinking,
that kept her chewing on the corner of her bottom lip as she paced about him,
her gaze locked on his.
The ranger soon fell into a similar trance, his focus becoming squarely,
singularly, Pony. There was only her and nothing else, only those burning blue
eyes, those tender lips.
Circling, they moved slightly, but ever closer with each rotation.
A harsh noise from somewhere in the forest startled the pair and stole the
moment. Neither recognized it, and neither wanted to search it out.
"Come," Elbryan bade Pony, taking her hand and leading her down a snow-
covered path. They moved out from under the canopy of the forest onto a
clearing, and Elbryan smiled wide, for there, across the field, stood Symphony.
The ranger had known that the stallion would be there, had even telepathically
called out to Symphony to wait for him.
Spotting him, the great stallion reared and snorted, its breath coming out
as a great cone of steam.
"Come," Elbryan said again, leading Pony quickly across the field. Now
that Symphony was with them, the ranger knew his destination, knew the only
place that would suit this first private meeting with Pony. He became tentative
when he neared the magnificent horse. Would Symphony accept two riders?
"Easy, friend," the ranger said softly, stroking the horse's muzzle and
muscled neck. He looked hard at the horse, sharing his thoughts, hearing the
answer, then looked at Pony and nodded.
"He is beautiful," she said. She thought, her words lame, somehow hollow
in the face of such magnificence as Symphony, but she had no other words to
offer to the stallion. Elbryan took her hand and helped her up tentatively onto
the powerful animal's back.
Symphony snorted again and jostled about, but gradually came to accept the
woman. Then came the real test as Elbryan went up on the stallion in front of
Pony.
The horse settled easily, ready to run.
And run Symphony did! Fast as the wind, flying along the trails, weaving
through the trees in a dizzying blur that had Pony screaming with terror and
delight, and holding so tightly to Elbryan's waist that every time the horse
came down hard the ranger's breath was blasted from his body.
Soon they came to the diamond-shaped grove, the spruce and pines blanketed
by snow but the ground about the grove blown bare by the wind. Symphony pulled
to a stop and the pair slid down.
Pony went right up to the horse's face and stared hard into one dark eye.
Her breathing would not steady; there was something too primordial, too untamed
and uncontrollable, about this beast, something fearfully strong. And yet she
had come through the ride unscathed, breathless with joy and excitement.
 She had come through the ride!
She turned to Elbryan, who was walking to the glade, and followed him. He
disappeared through the thick branches; Pony paused when she got to that spot,
considering the implications, considering her own feelings.
The young woman shook her head defiantly, then looked back at the
stallion, who reared and whinnied, as if to prod her on. Untamed,
uncontrollable, fearfully strong, he embodied the feelings that bubbled at the
edges of Pony's thoughts, threatening to overwhelm her.
She pushed through the thick branches into a small clearing, where Elbryan
crouched, the first flickers of a fire already starting before him. Pony watched
him as he worked, blowing softly, turning sticks.
Untamed, uncontrollable, fearfully strong. The thoughts stayed with her,
repeated in her head like a warning, like a temptation. She clenched her fists
at her sides, chewed the corner of her bottom lip again, and stared hard at this
man, no more the boy she had known and yet so much that boy with whom she had
shared her youth.
She feared those few memories she had not yet uncovered, and yet, looking
at Elbryan, she knew that she would soon face them.
She walked over to him and he rose, the fire burning. Face-to-face they
stood for many seconds, for minutes, staring in silence at each other.
Then he moved for her, his lips drawn to hers, and she gave a slight gasp,
expecting black wings to rise up all around her, expecting a scream to
reverberate within her mind. But then he was there, against her, his lips
brushing gently over hers, softly, softly, and all she felt was him, and all she
heard was his soft breathing and his slight moan.
The kiss became more urgent, and gradually Pony's fears melted away, swept
up in the sudden torrent of passion that overcame her. He kissed her hard, and
she kissed him back, tongues entwined, lips pressing hard.
And then they were apart, Elbryan staring at her, locking her deep in his
gaze. His hand came up and unlaced her cloak; and she let the garment drop
without protest, cool air on her skin. Then he reached for the buttons of her
shirt, and on and on until the last layer of her clothing fell away. And she was
not ashamed, not embarrassed, and no black wings of horrors past swept up about
her.
Elbryan pulled off his own cloak and shirt and stood bare to the waist
before her. They moved closer, the hairs of his chest just brushing her breasts,
little tingles shared. With his prompting, she lifted her arms high above her
head and he locked his fingers about hers.
Then he broke the hold and began to run his hands down her arms, slowly
and, oh, so gently, the tips of his fingernails just grazing her soft skin. Down
came his hands, past her elbows, across her arms, and then around to the back,
to her shoulder blades and to the base of her neck, so softly and gently,
fingertips just lightly brushing.
She felt the electric pull of those fingers, the tingle that made her want
to pull them in closer -- and yet, she knew that if they were pulled in closer,
their teasing tingle would be no more. Her head went back, mouth opened as she
basked in his stroke, as his hands went down her back, so gently, to the top of
her buttocks and then brushing about, to her hips and past her hips. Again with
his prompting, Pony turned and melted back into his strong embrace. He lifted
one hand to push her. hair aside, and gently kissed the nape of her neck, the
soft kiss turning slowly more urgent, a harder kiss, a gentle bite, and when she
cooed quietly, a harder bite still.
"Do you feel me?" he whispered into her ear.
"Yes."
"Are you alive?"
"So alive."
"Do you want me to make love to you?"
 Pony paused, searching for the threat of terrible memories. She recalled
her wedding night, glanced down at the glowing fire as if it were some enemy or
some forewarning. But this was different, the young woman knew, different from
Connor. Stronger.
Untamed, uncontrollable, fearfully strong, her mind recited. And right,
she silently added. So very right.
"Yes," she answered quietly.
They sank down to the ground together, onto the still-warm cloak, and
there they were, caught in the present and encircled by their past. For Elbryan,
it was the culmination of his youth, where every waking thought had led him to
this point with this woman, his soulmate, his Pony. This moment, so many years
in the waiting, was the marker of the end of that relationship with the girl,
the beginning of the new and deeper relationship with the woman. Now he was a
man, and Pony a woman, and all the love that had brought them to this moment
came crashing together with their bodies. He was happy to the point of
giddiness, and yet he was vulnerable suddenly, so vulnerable, for if anything
happened to Pony, if he lost her now as he had thought he had lost her before,
then a rift would be torn in his heart that would never mend, then his life ever
after would be without meaning.
For Pony, that moment in the grove was the denial of blackness, a dark
barrier torn down and thrown away, the harsh memories overwhelmed by the
gentleness, the love, and the warm memories of her youth with Elbryan: the time
when he had pulled her hair and she had laid him out flat; the times when his
friends had teased him, but he'd stood up to them, not denying his feelings for
the girl; their long talks and walks on the northern slope; that moment on the
slope when they shared in the vision of the Halo; that moment on the ridge when
they first kissed -- yes, that moment of the kiss! -- and this time, it did not
end in blackness and screams, but went on and on, kissing and touching, feeling
each other wholly. They had shared lives and were bonded by common memories, by
love lost and love found, and though they hadn't been together in years, they
each knew everything about the other, the truth of the moment.
They lay together for a long time afterward, nestled in their cloaks,
saying nothing, staring at the fire. Elbryan got up once to add wood to the
fire, and Pony laughed at him as he hopped about, naked, his bare feet stumbling
on the cold ground. She pulled the blanket tight about her when he returned, not
letting him in.
But her smile gave away her true feelings, the warmth of it egging Elbryan
on until he tackled her and fought with her, and then he was under the blanket
again, their bodies pressed together, and for Pony, all the world was spinning
once more.
Untamed, uncontrollable, fearfully strong.
Later, he was above her, looking down at her in the light of the low fire.
"My Pony," he whispered. "How empty was my life, so empty that I had not
the heart even to recognize the hole in it. Only now, when you have returned to
me, do I understand how empty it had been, how meaningless."
"Never that."
He nodded, denying her words. "My Pony," he said again. "The colors of the
world are returned to me."
Then he closed his eyes and kissed her.
The night deepened about them, the wind moaned through the trees and those
few birds that braved the northern winter whistled. Somewhere in the distance a
wolf howled, and another took up the song, and for Elbryan, the music was
sweeter now than ever before, than even in those years he had spent in the
enchanted elven forest.
He fell into a most contented sleep, but Pony did not. She lay awake all
the night, Elbryan close to her, Elbryan one with her. She thought of Connor and
her wedding night, of the black memories that had swallowed her. Unconsciously,
she rubbed the palm of her hand, burned once so long ago by glowing embers.
Now, for the first time, Pony saw those memories clearly, heard the
screams of Dundalis, saw the fires and the carnage, saw Olwan die in the grasp
of a giant, and in her mind, she crawled again under the burning house, into the
darkness.
Only this time, they were just memories and not threatening black demons.
This time, with Elbryan beside her, with Elbryan a part of her strength, she
could face them and accept them.
Teats streamed down her cheeks, but they were honest tears for the loss of
Dundalis; when they were gone, when the moment of grief at long last was past,
Pony hugged sleeping Elbryan close and smiled, truly free for the first time
since that moment on the ridge, since the moment of her first kiss.

CHAPTER 37
Catch of the Day

"Damn me," the skinny, nervous man whimpered, skittering away from the noose
trap and from the ugly humanoid creature hanging from it. "Damn me, oh, damn me!
Cric! Cric!"
He realized soon enough that his screaming would only bring in more of
these creatures, if any were about, so he slapped a hand over his own mouth and
tumbled down to the field, his free hand moving to one of the many daggers on
his broad shoulder belts. He found little cover, however, for though the grass
was tall, it was sparse, with only a few blades sticking up through the blanket
of light snow.
A few moments later, Chipmunk breathed a little easier as a bald, lean man
rushed into view, his sword at the ready. "Chipmunk?" Cric called softly.
"Chipmunk, are ye here?"
Chipmunk scrambled to his feet and ran for his friend, tripping and
falling several times on the slippery ground.
"What do ye know?" Cric asked him repeatedly as he stumbled to approach.
Finally, Chipmunk caught up to his friend, but he was too excited to explain in
words. He hopped up and down, pointing back across the field to a small copse of
trees.
"Our trap?" the bald man asked calmly.
Chipmunk nodded so rapidly that he bit his tongue.
"What'd we catch something?"
Again the wild nod.
"Something unusual?"
Chipmunk was in no mood for any further questions. He grabbed Cric by the
arm and shoved him ahead in the direction of the copse. Cric straightened and,
seeing that Chipmunk would not be following, just shook his head and went alone
to the trap.
A minute later, there came a howl from the trees and Cric ran from the
spot nearly as quickly as had Chipmunk.
"It's a g-goblin!" the tall man sputtered. "A damned goblin!"
"We got to get Paulson," reasoned Chipmunk, to which Cric only nodded and
ran off, the skinny man in close pursuit.
They found barrel-chested Paulson, their leader, sitting, relaxing against
the sunny side of a wide elm, his ragged boots standing off to the side, his
dirty toes wriggling near a small fire. The pair slowed as they approached,
knowing that to disturb Paulson usually meant a slap on the head.
Cric motioned for Chipmunk to approach the man, but Chipmunk only motioned
back.
 "State yer business," Paulson demanded under half-closed eyelids. "And yer
business better be worth stating!"
"We caught something," Cric remarked.
Paulson opened his eyes and rubbed a hand across a face that was more scar
than beard. "Good pelt?" he asked:
"No pelt," said Chipmunk.
"No fur," added Cric. "Just skin."
"What?" Paulson sat up straight and reached for his boots. "Don't ye tell
me ye hanged a man now!"
"Not a man," said Chipmunk.
"It's a damned goblin!" spouted Cric.
Paulson's face went suddenly grave. "A goblin?" he echoed quietly.
Both men nodded eagerly.
"Just one?"
Again the nods.
"Ye damned fools," scolded Paulson. "Don't ye know there's no such thing
as `just one' goblin?"
"We should go home,`' said Chipmunk.
Paulson looked all around, then shook his head. Cric and Chipmunk were
fairly new to the area, having come north a little more than three years before,
but Paulson had lived on the border of the Wilderlands for most of his life, had
been living just outside Weedy Meadow when the goblin raid had flattened
Dundalis. "We got to find out how many," he replied, "and find out where they're
heading."
"Aw, who's to care for the folk o' Dundalis?" asked a frightened Cric.
"They never cared any for us."
"Yeah," added Chipmunk.
"It's more than for them," said Paulson. "For ourselves. If goblins're
coming hard, then we'd be wise to go south for a bit."
"Can't we just go south then, anyway?" asked Cric.
"Shut yer mouth and keep yer sword ready," Paulson ordered. "Goblins ain't
so tough -- it's their numbers ye got to fear. And their friends," he added
grimly, "for goblins and giants get on well."
The other two were trembling.
"But all we got to do is see them afore they see us," the burly man went
on. "Might be that there's a bounty on goblin ears."
That seemed to catch the pair's attention.
The three went back to the trap first, Paulson unceremoniously cutting the
goblin down, then slicing off its ears and putting them in a pouch, pausing only
to note that the creature was surprisingly well armed for one of its kind and
that it wore an insignia on its leather jerkin, a black emblem of a batlike
creature on a light gray background. Paulson didn't think too much of it,
figuring that the jerkin was stolen anyway.
"Not been here more than a few hours," Paulson announced, after a quick
inspection, of the body. "If this one traveled with friends, then they're likely
still about." The creature's tracks through the copse were not hard to follow,
but any marks it had made on the open field beyond had been erased by the wind.
Still, just by the direction from which it had entered the copse, the trackers
could make a reasonable guess about where it had come from, and so they set off
quickly across the field and into the forest.
Chipmunk found the first goblin sign -- three sets of tracks with one
branching back the way the three men had come, the other two moving off down a
different fork in the trail.
"Well, now we're outnumbering them," Paulson said wickedly, the big man
never fearful of a fight.
Less than a mile on, they spotted the goblin pair, resting amid a tumble
of rocks on a forested hillside. Paulson drew out his large sword and motioned
for Cric to go in at his side, while Chipmunk was to go to the higher ground
around to the right, getting an angle for his dagger throws.
"Hard and fast?" Cric whispered.
Paulson considered the words, then shook his head. He held Cric back,
hiding behind some scrub, while agile Chipmunk worked his way into position.
Then Paulson started out, slowly, pacing evenly and calmly toward the goblin
pair. He and Cric were within a dozen strides before the goblins spotted them,
and then how the creatures howled!
They jumped to their feet, one producing a long, iron-tipped spear, the
other a well-fashioned short sword. Paulson was surprised that these two, like
their dead comrade, were so well armed and also that their jerkins so closely
resembled the one on the dead goblin, even down to the emblem. The large man's
knowledge of goblins simply didn't reconcile with this sight before him.
Nor did the goblins act in any manner that Paulson would have expected. He
and Cric came on fast, but only one goblin, the spear wielder, jumped out to
meet them, blocking the way, covering its companion's sudden retreat.
Both swordsmen came in fast; the goblin swished the spear back and forth,
the weapon's sharp tip scratching Cries arm and holding him at bay. Paulson
stepped inside the range and caught the spear by the shaft and rushed up its
length, quickly and efficiently embedding his sword deep in the creature's
chest.
"Two more ears!" Cric laughed, but Paulson wasn't thinking along those
lines just then.
"Get him, Chipmunk!" he called.
The fleeing goblin angled up the hill, and Chipmunk moved to intercept,
sliding to his knees and sending a pair of daggers spinning at the goblin. The
creature managed to dodge one, but the other caught it on the hip and hung
there:
The goblin squealed but hardly slowed, even when Chipmunk's next blade
stuck deep into its shoulder.
Then the goblin was out of throwing range, and Chipmunk fell in with
Paulson and Cric, taking up the chase. Tall Cric was by far the fastest of the
three and he forged ahead, gaining steadily on the goblin as it scrambled down
the back side of the hill, then over the wooded floor of the next valley. The
creature went up over a rise, Cric in close pursuit, and Paulson howled out for
his companion to "take the damned thing down!"
Cric went up to the top of the hill, eager, sword ready, and then, to the
surprise of his two friends, he skidded to a stop.
When Paulson and Chipmunk caught up to him, they understood his hesitance,
for there, in a wide valley below the ridge, loomed the largest army that any of
the three had ever seen -- and both Cric and Paulson had spent a few years in
the Kingsmen. All the valley was filled with tents and campfires; a thousand,
thousand forms milled about down below, most seeming about goblin. sized, some
even smaller, but with a fair number of fomorian giants among them. Even more
surprising to the three men were the war engines, a dozen at least, great
catapults and spear-throwing ballistae, and huge corkscrew devices, obviously
for burrowing through fortified walls.
"How far south were you planning to move?" Cric asked Paulson.
To the barrel-chested man at that moment, Behren seemed a distinct
possibility.

"I'm knowing that ye're up to something no good!" the centaur roared. "An
assumption I'm sure to make every time I glance upon yer ugly faces!" Bradwarden
had heard the stirring in the small ramshackle but and, upon investigation, had
found the three trappers packing their gear, stripping everything from the shack
walls.
 The three men glanced nervously at one another. Even huge Paulson seemed a
small thing indeed when standing before the eight-hundred-pound centaur -- and
the creature's demeanor at that moment made him even more imposing.
"Well?" boomed Bradwarden. "Have ye an explanation?"
"We're leaving, that's all," said Chipmunk.
"Leaving?"
"Going south," Cric added, ready to concoct an appropriate lie, but when
Paulson glared at him, the tall, bald man went silent.
"What did ye do, then?" demanded Bradwarden. "I know ye-ye'd not be
leaving if ye hadn't angered someone:" The centaur backed off a bit, then
smiled, thinking he had it figured out. "Ye got Nightbird on yer trail," he
reasoned.
"We ain't seen the ranger in weeks," Paulson protested.
"But ye've seen his friends," said Bradwarden. "Might be that ye've killed
one o' his friends."
"No such thing!" growled Paulson.
"Goblins ain't no friend o' the Nightbird!" added Chipmunk before he could
properly think his words through. Cric pushed the skinny man hard, and Paulson's
glare promised Chipmunk that he meant to do him even more harm for his slip.
Bradwarden backed off a step, eyeing the three curiously. "Goblins?"
"Did I say goblins?" Chipmunk asked innocently, trying to backtrack.
"Ye did!" Bradwarden roared, ending any forthcoming lies from the man and
his two companions. "Ye said goblins, and if there be goblins about, and ye know
o' them, then tell yer tale in full, or be sure that I'll trample ye down to the
dirt!"
"Goblins," Paulson said grimly. "Thousands of goblins. We seen them, and
want no part o' them." He went on to recount the tale in full, and ended by
dropping four goblin ears to the ground before Bradwarden.
Paulson then asked the centaur to be gone so that he and his friends might
finish their packing and be on their way, but Bradwarden wouldn't let them get
away that easily. They would go with him, the centaur decided, to find Elbryan
and Pony and tell their tale once again. The three trappers weren't keen on the
idea of wasting a single moment, but neither were they ready to battle the
fierce centaur.
They found the pair and Brother Avelyn at Elbryan's camp just north of
Dundalis, nestled within the shelter of a grove of closely growing spruce trees.
Bradwarden called out long before his group approached -- Elbryan could set a
trap as well as any elf, and the ranger was always on his guard. The ranger
invited the centaur in, of course, but was surprised indeed to find his half-
horse friend in the company of such rogues.
"I believe that Mr. Paulson there has a tale ye'll be wanting to hear,"
Bradwarden explained.
Paulson laid it out simply and to the point, and his words hit especially
hard on Pony and on Elbryan. For Pony, the possibility of an approaching goblin
army sent her mind careening back to the day of the tragedy, threatening to
overwhelm her with feelings she had only recently reconciled.
For Elbryan, though, the trapper's tale was more complicated. While he,
too, carried those terrible memories within him, he also had his sense of duty.
How many times had the ranger told himself that he would not allow such a
tragedy to befall Dundalis again? And here, before him, loomed the threat, the
same threat. For Pony, it took great strength to master her fears, to keep her
wits about her; for Elbryan, it was simply a matter of duty and pride.
The ranger took a stick from the edge of the low fire and drew a rough map
of the area on the ground. "Show me the exact location," he ordered Paulson, and
the man readily complied, understanding that if Elbryan wasn't satisfied, the
ranger would probably force him to go along, the better to investigate.
Elbryan paced about the campfire, looking down often at the map.
 "They must be told," Pony said.
Elbryan nodded.
"On the word of these three?" Bradwarden asked incredulously.
The ranger looked from Paulson to the centaur, then nodded again. "It is
never too soon to issue a warning," he said.
Paulson appeared vindicated, but Elbryan wasn't ready to concede that the
man's words were true. "I will go north," the ranger said, "to this place
described."
"I'll not go with ye," Paulson protested.
Elbryan shook his head, " I will fly fast, too fast for you." He looked at
Bradwarden, and the centaur nodded, understanding the plea and more than ready
to go along with his ranger friend.
"You," Elbryan said to Paulson, "and your friends will go to End-o'-the-
World, bearing word of warning."
Paulson held out his hand to quiet Cric and Chipmunk, their protests and
fears bubbling up in the form of unintelligible whimpers. "And then?" Paulson
wanted to know.
"Where your heart takes you," Elbryan replied. "You owe me nothing, I say,
beyond this one favor."
"We're owing ye even that?" Paulson asked skeptically.
Elbryan's grim nod was all the reply that the man was going to get, a
poignant reminder of that day in the trappers' shack when the ranger had shown
mercy.
"End-o'-the-World," Paulson agreed angrily. "And we'll tell the fools, but
I'm not thinking that they'll be listening."
Elbryan nodded and looked at Pony. "Weedy Meadow," he instructed. "You and
Avelyn."
"And what of Dundalis?" the woman asked.
"Bradwarden and I will return to Dundalis with word of the goblins," the
ranger explained. "But first, we will return here." The ranger pointed down at
the map with his stick, to a spot on the map northwest of Dundalis, a point
nearly equidistant from Dundalis and Weedy Meadow, and not much further from
End-o'-the-World.
"The grove?" Pony asked.
Elbryan nodded. "A diamond-shaped grove of fir trees," he explained to the
trappers.
"I'm knowing the spot," said Paulson, "and not much caring for it."
Elbryan wasn't surprised by that response -- likely the -- same elven
magic that drew the ranger to the grove made a rogue like Paulson feel
uncomfortable around it. "One week, then," the ranger explained. He looked to
Paulson. "If you go straight to the south from End-o'-the-World, be certain that
the folk of the town know where I can be found."
Paulson waved him away, the man seeming, quite displeased by it all.
Elbryan motioned to Bradwarden. "Symphony is about," the ranger said
confidently.
Before the next dawn, the ranger and the centaur were racing to the north,
Bradwarden working hard to keep up with magnificent Symphony.
Avelyn and Pony, walking side by side, set a more gradual pace, for they
figured that they could arrive in Weedy Meadow before the nightfall.
The road was a bit longer for Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk, but though the
latter two pressed Paulson hard for desertion, telling him every step of the way
that they should abandon End-o'-the-World and go straight on to the south -- all
the way to Palmaris, perhaps -- the big man, duty-bound for the first time in
years, would hear nothing of it. He had given his word, to the ranger that he
would go and warn the folk of End-o'-the-World, and so he would.
Pony and Avelyn had underestimated the distance and camped outside Weedy
Meadow that night, the monk reasoning that it would be better for them to go
into town with such grim warnings during the brightness of day. They rested
easily in the quiet forest, having learned much of camp building from Elbryan
over the last few days, and Pony was soon asleep.
She awakened to the screams of Avelyn, the fat man in the throes of a
nightmare, rolling about on the ground. Finally Pony managed to stir him from
his slumber, and the look upon his face as he stared at her was one of madness,
one that sent chills up and down Pony's spine.
Avelyn lifted his hand and opened it, revealing several small stones, the
burned smoky quartz that he had taken from the corpse of Brother Quintall.
"I felt that they had magic left in them," the fat monk explained.
"Distance sight is their trademark."
"You looked for the goblins," Pony reasoned.
"And I saw them, my girl," said Avelyn, "a vast host. Paulson did not
exaggerate!"
Pony breathed hard and nodded.
"But that was not all!" Avelyn said to her, grabbing and shaking her. "I
was compelled beyond the army. Compelled I say, pulled by the magic of the
stones, by a distant power that long ago attuned itself to these special
stones."
Pony looked at him curiously, not really understanding.
"Something terrible is awake in Corona, my girl!" Avelyn spouted. "The
dactyl walks Corona!"
The words were nothing new to Pony; Avelyn had been making such claims for
a very long time. Indeed, he had spouted similar words in the common room in
Tinson on the night Pony had first met him. This time, though, there was
something more to the claim, something personal. Always Avelyn had been firm in
his belief, but now his expression showed him to be far beyond simple belief At
that moment, in the light of a dying fire, Pony had no doubt that Avelyn's
knowledge of the awakened dactyl was now something more than the suspicions
aroused by ancient texts. It was something entirely personal.
"So there ye have it," Bradwarden said quietly, ominously, he and Elbryan
looking out over a vast field of dark tents. "Them three wasn't lying."
"Or even exaggerating," Elbryan added in subdued tones. When first he had
crested this ridge, looking down upon the massive army setting its camp, the
ranger's heart had dropped. How could the folk of Dundalis, Weedy Meadow, and
End-o'-the-World resist such an army, even if all of them stood together behind
fortified walls?
They could not, of course.
And it was quite obvious that this' force was moving southward. The army
was many miles below the spot where Paulson, Cric, arid Chipmunk had indicated
they had seen it, and the swath the goblins and giants had cut in the forest on
the northern side of the encampment was visible even from this southern ridge.
"We'll find us a hole to hide in," Bradwarden said calmly. "Goblins been
through afore, and'll be through again. I've waited them out afore, and I'll
wait them out again!'."
"We need to know more of their intentions," Elbryan said suddenly, drawing
a curious stare from the centaur.
"Not so hard to figure out what a goblin means to do," Bradwarden replied
dryly.
Elbryan was shaking his head before the centaur ever finished. "This is
different," he explained. "Goblins and giants should not be together in so large
a group. And working in concert," he added, sweeping his arm across the panorama
of the encampment, indicating the disciplined manner in which the creatures were
organizing their camp. "And what of those?" he went on, pointing to a dozen huge
war engines circled on the far end of the camp.
"They're a bit hungrier this time, is all," replied Bradwarden. "So
they'll kill a few more than usual, maybe sack two towns instead of one. It's an
old tale, me friend, repeated again and again, though always do ye human folk
seem surprised when it falls on yer heads."
Elbryan didn't believe it, not this time, not in looking at that military
camp. He glanced to the left, taking note that the sun was touching the horizon.
"I have to go" he remarked.
"Do ye now?" the centaur asked sarcastically.
Elbryan slipped down from Symphony and handed his reins to Bradwarden.
"Scout the area," he said. "See if any branches of the army have moved past our
location. I will return at the setting of Sheila to this spot or to the back of
the next ridge if the goblins have claimed this area as their own."
Bradwarden knew that it was futile to argue with the stubborn ranger.
Elbryan made his way from tree to tree, to bush and to the back of hills,
moving ever closer to the great army. Soon, goblin scouts were about him,
walking through the trees, talking in their whining voices, complaining about
this or that, about the fit of their uniforms or some particularly nasty
commander who talked more with his whip than his voice. Elbryan couldn't make
out every word; the goblins were using the language spoken by the common folk of
Corona, but the creatures' accents were so thick, their slang so heavy, that the
ranger could only get a general impression of their conversation.
That impression did little to calm Elbryan's fears. The goblins were
speaking of being a part of an army, that much was certain.
Elbryan got his next surprise an hour later. The ranger was up in a tree,
lying low across a thick branch barely ten feet from the ground when a group of
soldiers walked into the clearing below the tree. Three were goblins, but the
fourth, holding the torch, was a creature the ranger had never before seen, a
dwarf, barrelchested but spindly limbed, wearing a red cap.
A cap red with blood, Elbryan knew, for though he had never seen a powrie
before, he remembered well the childhood tales of the wicked dwarves.
The four decided to rest right at the base of the wide-spreading tree.
Fortunately for Elbryan, none of the creatures bothered to look up into the
tangle of branches.
The ranger wasn't sure how to proceed. He, felt that he should steal that
bloody cap, as further proof for the townsfolk that danger was sweeping their
way. Reports of goblins would do little more than stir up some interest and
maybe incite a few patrols, Elbryan knew, a response he remembered from his own
days as a villager. But a bloody cap tossed in their midst, proof that powries
were in the region, might scare more than a few folk from their homes, might
send them running down the road to the south.
How to get the cap, though?
Stealthy thievery seemed the order of the day. The four were down and
resting; perhaps they would drift off to sleep. One of the goblins brought out a
bulging waterskin, and as soon as the creature poured some of the foaming liquid
into a mug, Elbryan knew that it held some potent drink indeed.
Elbryan's blood began to boil with rage as the goblins talked of
flattening the towns and killing all the men, as they described in detail the
pleasures that might be had before they killed the women.
The young man found his breath hard to draw; the brutish talk brought him
back to that awful day in his youth, made him see again the carnage in Dundalis,
made him hear again the screams of his family and his friends.
All thoughts of stealthy thievery flew from the fierce ranger's mind.
A few minutes later, one of the goblins went off a short distance into the
brush to relieve itself. Elbryan could still see the creature, a darker spot in
the brush, its back to him, swaying back and forth as it watered a bush.
The ranger shifted slowly to a sitting position. He lifted an arrow to
Hawkwing's string and gently pulled back. He glanced down at the other three,
growing louder and more boisterous as they drank deeply. The dwarf was telling
some rowdy story, the two goblins laughing riotously at every grotesque detail.
 Elbryan measured the words, waiting a moment longer, sensing that the
dwarf was at some high point.
Hawkwing's bowstring hummed, the arrow flying true, diving into the back
of the peeing goblin's head. The creature gave a slight moan and tumbled
headlong into the brush.
The dwarf stopped abruptly and hopped to its feet, staring out into the
night.
The goblins were still laughing, though, one of them making some crude
remark that its companion probably passed out on top of its own urine.
The dwarf wasn't so sure and waved the pair to silence, then motioned for
them to move out a bit.
Up on the branch, the ranger fitted two arrows to his bow, one above the
other and drew back the string. The two goblins paced out in front of the dwarf,
side by side, calling softly to their missing companion, though neither seemed
over-concerned.
Elbryan shifted his bow to horizontal, took careful aim, and let fly. The
arrows whipped out, not quite parallel, their angle separating them as they
flew. They were two feet apart as each burrowed into its respective goblin,
dropping the creatures where they stood. One made not a sound, the other, hit
below a lung, let out an agonized howl.
Elbryan leaped from the branch, letting fly another arrow in midair, this
one silencing the wounded goblin forever. The ranger hit the ground in a roll,
flicked the feathered tip and string from Hawkwing, and came to his feet, staff
at the ready.
The dwarf was ready, too, a two-headed flail spinning in its hands. It
came on in a wild rush, showing no sign of fear.
Elbryan leaped back, easily avoiding the short reach of the flail, then
stepped ahead and poked hard with the tip of his staff, smacking the dwarf right
in the face.
The stout creature hardly slowed, rushing ahead, whipping its flail back
and forth.
Elbryan dodged and darted out to the side and, when the dwarf turned to
chase, swinging its weapon with extended arms, Elbryan presented his staff
vertically, both balls of the flail wrapping about it.
The ranger pulled hard, expecting to take the weapon from the dwarf's
hand, but the powrie was stronger than Elbryan believed, and only pulled back
even harder. Always ready to improvise, Elbryan eased his muscles and ran
straight ahead into the dwarf, turning his staff to smash its tip into the
dwarf's face once more.
Elbryan tugged again and the chained balls slipped off the staff's end,
freeing both weapons. The ranger had the advantage, though, and he batted
Hawkwing back and forth, clubbing the dwarf twice on either side of its hard
head.
The powrie retreated a step and shook its head fiercely, then, to
Elbryan's disbelief, came charging right back in. Its swing was awkward, the
flail coming in from a wide angle, and Elbryan thrust his staff out that way in
one hand, enwrapping the balls once more. The ranger stepped straight ahead,
cupped his fingers, flattened his palm, and slammed the powrie with a series of
short heavy blows, each one snapping the dwarf's head back.
His attacks showing little effect, the ranger spun to the side, grabbed up
his staff in both hands, and tugged hard, pulling the flail free of the powrie's
grasp and launching it across the clearing. Sensing that the furious dwarf would
be charging again, Elbryan came all the way around and jabbed Hawkwing hard into
the creature's throat, stopping it in its tracks.
The ranger spun again and smashed the staff down diagonally across the
powrie's jaw, cracking bone, but the dwarf only growled and pursued. Elbryan
simply could not believe the punishment this creature had accepted!
 The powrie dipped its broad shoulder, trying to tackle the ranger. Elbryan
set his feet and launched a vicious uppercut jab with the staff, using the
powrie's momentum against it.
But still the dwarf came on, locking its thin arms about Elbryan's waist
and squeezing him tight, driving him back toward the trunk of the huge tree.
The ranger dropped Hawkwing, reached behind him to his pack, and tore free
his hatchet. With a growl, he chopped it down hard on the back of the powrie's
neck.
Still the dwarf drove him backward.
Elbryan hit the creature again and again, then nearly lost his weapon when
he collided with the tree, the powrie's legs driving on, as if the dwarf meant
to push him right through the bark.
And given the unearthly strength of the dwarf, Elbryan wondered if the
creature might actually do so!
Now the ranger's arm pumped frantically, and finally after perhaps the
tenth blow, the powrie's grasp at last loosened.
Elbryan timed his maneuver, hit the dwarf once more, then spun out to the
side, and the overbalanced, semiconscious powrie ran headlong into the tree,
hugging it now, holding on to it dearly, for if the dwarf let go, it knew it
would fall to the ground.
Elbryan walked up behind the creature and bashed his hatchet with all his
strength into the back of the dwarf's neck, splintering. bone. The powrie
whimpered, but held on.
Elbryan, horrified, hit it again, and the dwarf slumped to its knees,
finally dead, but still hugging the tree.
Elbryan looked at his weapons, so ineffective against the sturdy powrie.
"I need a sword," the ranger lamented. He took the dwarf's cap and gathered up
Hawkwing, quickly replacing the feathered tip and stringing the weapon. As he
started out of the clearing, he heard a gasp, and turned and fitted an arrow so
fluidly and quickly that the newest goblin that had stumbled upon the scene
hardly moved before an arrow took it through the throat; ,sending it stumbling
backward into another tree.
Elbryan's next shot pierced its heart and drove deep into the tree behind
it, and the goblin slumped, quite dead, but standing, pegged to the tree.
The ranger ran off, arriving at the appointed spot as the moon settled
behind the western horizon. Bradwarden and Symphony were waiting for him, the
centaur bearing ill news. A section of the army had indeed broken off from this
main group, so the tracks had shown, heading south and west.
"End-o'-the-World," Elbryan reasoned.
"They're near to the place already," said Bradwarden, "if not sleeping in
the village itself."
Elbryan hopped up on Symphony. There would be no sleep for him this night,
he knew, nor the next.

CHAPTER 38
Mercy Repaid

"Remain here," Elbryan bade Bradwarden when the pair reached the diamond-shaped
grove, "or in the region, at least. See what the news is from Weedy Meadow and
prepare the folk of Dundalis for the decision that will soon be before them."
"The humans aren't much for talking to the likes of a centaur," Bradwarden
reminded the ranger. "But I'll see what I can see and set me animal friends
about to the north and west, looking for goblin sign. Ye're for End-o'-the-
World, then?"
Elbryan nodded. "I pray that I arrive in time, or that the three trappers
got word to the folk."
 "Pray for the second, for hoping for the first, I fear, will be a waste o'
yer time," Bradwarden replied. "And for the trappers, pray instead that the
folk're smart enough to heed their words."
Elbryan nodded grimly and tugged his reins, swinging Symphony about. The
stallion was already lathered from the long run south, but Symphony had more
heart than any other horse and understood his rider's urgency. Off the stallion
pounded through the predawn forest, running on all through the next day. From
one high hillock, Elbryan noted hopefully that no smoke appeared in the west,
that End-o'-the-World apparently was not burning.
Elbryan first noticed the ghostly figures moving through the mist as
twilight descended. The ranger still had a dozen miles before him to get to End-
o'-the-World, and so shapes moving through the forest, moving eastward, did not
bade well. He brought Symphony up behind a thick tangle of white birch and
strung Hawkwing, ready to fight all the way to the westernmost village if need
be.
Somewhere not far ahead and to the side, a small shadow glided through the
trees, a slender form not much higher than Elbryan's waist. The ranger put up
his bow and drew back, finding the mark. He saw the form stumble out of some
brush and stagger along the trail. It was the right size for a goblin -- a small
one -- but the way it moved did not seem right to the perceptive ranger. This
was not a lead soldier in an army's march, but one exhausted, in desperate
flight. The ranger waited a few moments longer as the figure neared, as it came
out into a clearing under the moonlight.
A young boy, no more than ten years.
Elbryan prodded Symphony into a short gallop, too quickly for the
frightened youngster to scramble away. The ranger bent low to the side and
caught the fleeing boy under the arm, easily hoisting him up into the saddle,
trying to quiet his cries.
A movement from the other side caught the ranger's attention. He pushed
down hard to secure the squirming youngster and swung about, Hawkwing in his
free hand, ready to fend off an attack.
The would be attacker skidded to an abrupt stop, recognizing the man.
"Paulson," Elbryan breathed.
"And to yerself, Nightbird," the large man replied. "Be easy on the boy.
He's been through the fighting."
Elbryan looked down to his diminutive captive. "End-o'-the-World?" he
asked.
Paulson nodded grimly.
Other people walked into the small clearing then, dirty, many with wounds,
and all with that hollow, shocked expression showing that they had just come
through hell.
"Goblins and giants hit the place two days after we arrived," Paulson
explained.
"And dwarves," added Cric, coming into the clearing beside Chipmunk.
"Nasty folk!"
"Powries," remarked Elbryan, holding up the cap he had procured.
"We got some o' the folk on the road south before the fight," Paulson went
on, "some smart enough to hear our words o' doom. But most stayed. Stubborn."
Elbryan nodded, thinking of his own village. Few in Dundalis would have
left even if they knew a goblin force was coming to avenge the goblin that had
been killed by the hunting party. They would have stayed and fought and died,
because Dundalis was their home and, in truth, they had nowhere else to go.
"They came in hard, Nightbird," Paulson went on, shaking his head, "and in
numbers I'd not've believed possible had I not seen the army in the north for
meself. We got out, me and Cric and Chipmunk, and we took about a score of folk
with us, running blind through the woods these few days, thinking that we've got
goblins on our heels all the way."
 Elbryan closed his eyes, sympathetic to the tale, understanding completely
the plight of these people, the horrible emptiness that some of them now felt,
the complete hopelessness.
"There is a sheltered meadow two hundred yards from this spot," Elbryan
told Paulson, the ranger pointing back the way he had come. "Take your band
there and huddle together to fend off the cold. I will scout out the lands west
and return quickly, that we might make our choice."
Paulson gave a quick nod. "We could be using some rest," he admitted.
Elbryan let the boy down to Paulson's waiting grasp, and the ranger was
touched by how gently the bearish man handled the youngster. He sat for a while
atop Symphony, regarding the refugees, wondering what he might do for these
people.
Then he set off, riding hard through the moonlit woods. He was out an hour
and more before he decided that there Were no goblins in the area, no dwarves,
and certainly no giants. Elbryan thought that a curious thing; why hadn't the
wretched humanoids pursued the fleeing humans? And why, he wondered, had the
western sky been clear of smoke? Surely the goblins would have burned End-o'-
the-World, as they had burned Dundalis years before.
Back at the sheltered meadow, Elbryan gave his permission for the refugees
to start a couple of low fires. It was risky setting a light in the dark forest,
but these folk sorely needed the warmth.
Elbryan slipped down from Symphony at the side of the meadow, bade the
horse to stay in the area and listen close for his call, then he went into. the
small encampment and found a place about the fire with the three trappers.
"I would have thought that you three would take the south road with those
who were wise enough to flee," Elbryan remarked after a short, uncomfortable
silence. The ranger noted then the way Cric looked hard at Paulson, the way
Paulson kept his own gaze low to the fire.
"Wasn't time," the big man replied unconvincingly.
Elbryan paused for a long while, studying Paulson, trying to find some
clue to this uncharacteristically chivalrous action. Finally, Paulson looked up,
locking stares with the ranger.
"So we're with ye, then," the big man growled. "But don't ye think for a
moment that we three give a beaver's damn for Honce-the-Bear or any town between
here and Ursal!"
"Then why?" Elbryan asked simply.
Paulson looked down at the fire. He stood up and kicked a stick that had
fallen from the flames, then walked off.
Elbryan looked at the man's companions. Cric motioned across the way to
the boy Elbryan had captured.
"Paulson had a boy once," Cric explained, "about the same years as that
one. Fell from a tree and breaked his neck."
"That one there lost his folk, by me own guess," Chipmunk added.
"You could have gotten away," said Elbryan, "to the south."
Cric started to respond, eagerly and angrily, it seemed to Elbryan, but
the tall man went silent as Paulson stormed back over to the fire.
"And I'm not liking smelly goblins!" the large man snarled. "I mean to get
me enough goblin ears so that a single gold piece bounty'll put me in a big
house with a dozen serving wenches on a hundred acres o' land!"
Elbryan nodded and smiled, trying to calm the brute, but Paulson only
kicked the dirt again and stormed away. It was more than any bounty, the ranger
knew. And, given the fact that Cric and Chipmunk had remained, it was more than
the tale of a child lost. These three, for all their faults and all their vocal
protests, carried some degree of humanity within them. Whatever complaints Cric
and Chipmunk might offer, they had remained in the area because of the refugees,
out of simple compassion.
 In the end, Elbryan hardly cared what reason Paulson or the others gave
for staying. Given the increasingly desperate situation about him, Elbryan was
only glad to have these trappers, fierce fighters who knew the area as well as -
- or even better than -- he, on his side.
The next day, Elbryan set the refugees on their way for Dundalis, if
possible, though he gave Paulson several alternate choices, caves and sheltered
vales. Then the ranger set off, riding hard for End-o'-the-World, looking for
answers or hints of what might yet come, and hoping to find more refugees.
The forest was perfectly quiet as he neared the town. Still, he saw no
smoke blackening the sky. He left Symphony in the forest and moved tree to tree,
crossing past goblin sentries undetected, at last finding a good vantage point
on the edge of the village.
Goblins, dwarves, and giants swarmed in the place, moving as if this were
their home. Elbryan saw the bodies, dozens of dead, human and humanoid, thrown
in a ditch on the western edge of town, but this was not as the sack of Dundalis
had been. ,The buildings showed very little damage; none had been burned. Did
the humanoid army mean to settle here? Or, as the ranger thought much more
likely, did they mean to use End-o'-the-World as a base camp, a supply depot?
Elbryan didn't like the prospects. From End-o'-the-World, this force could
swing south and then east, cutting off the roads for any people fleeing Weedy
Meadow or Dundalis, the next obvious targets. And if the humanoids didn't sack
the town, that indicated they meant to continue on.
Elbryan recalled the image of the vast encampment. The humanoids could
indeed advance, and the ranger had to wonder if all the men of Honce-the-Bear
could even slow them.
He could do nothing here, so he thought, and he turned to leave, picking
the course that would get him back through the forest to Symphony.
Then the ranger heard the cry, a child's cry, from a house nearby.
Elbryan squatted low and considered his options. He could hardly leave
such a desperate wail, but if he was caught here, then the information he
possessed might never reach Weedy Meadow or Dundalis. There was more at stake
here than his own life.
But the cry sounded again, seconded by another whimper, that of a woman.
Elbryan dashed across the clearing between two houses, held still long
enough to survey the area, then ran on to the house in question.
"A meal for a dog!" he heard inside, a harsh voice, like that of the
powrie he had killed. "You get me some proper food or I'll eat the arm from your
ugly son!"
The woman cried out again, followed closely by the sound of a sharp slap,
then of a body falling hard to the floor. Elbryan moved along the side of the
house, finally spotting a small window.
The powrie advanced on the sobbing woman, its hand raised to deliver
another heavy blow. It stopped, though, a couple of feet from its intended
victim, looking down at the woman curiously.
And she looked at the dwarf, not understanding until the powrie toppled
forward, an arrow deep in its back. The woman looked past it, her eyes wide, to
the window, where stood the ranger, motioning to her and to her son to be quick.
The three got from house to house, then across the short clearing to the
woods. As they entered the shelter of the trees, they heard a scream from the
town.
Elbryan looked back upon End-o'-the-World to see another powrie come
running out of the house, shouting that there was an archer about.
"Run!" Elbryan whispered urgently to his companions. They scrambled
through the woods desperately, hearing horns from the town. Elbryan realized
that the goblin sentries would soon be all about them, swanning about the
forest.
 He saw the shapes of two such goblins paralleling the movements of his
group. Up came Hawkwing, and two shots later, the immediate threat was ended.
But there were more, many more, and the pursuit from the town was
organized and systematic, calls from sentries gradually narrowing the possible
area.
The three came upon Symphony, the big stallion pawing the ground and
snorting warnings. Elbryan hoisted the woman onto Symphony's back, into the
saddle, then placed the boy behind her.
"Tell the centaur what you have seen in End-o'-the-World," he instructed
the woman, who only shook her head as if she didn't understand. "Tell Bradwarden
-- remember that name -- and all the others that the goblins will likely move
south and east to cut off their escape." The ranger's tone was adamant, so
forceful that the woman finally nodded her consent. "I will join you as soon as
I can."
"Run," the ranger instructed the horse, "all the way to the grove to
Bradwarden!"
"What of you?" the woman asked, grabbing the ranger's hand. "How will you
get away from this place?" Elbryan had no time for answers. He pulled his hand
free, and Symphony leaped away, thundering down the trails, slamming down two
goblins that foolishly jumped in his path to intercept.
Elbryan watched for a moment, confident that the woman and boy would be
safe enough with Symphony carrying them. Then the ranger turned his attention to
his own predicament, looked about at the many shapes moving among the shadows of
the trees, and listened to the many calls of goblins and dwarves and the
fearsome bellows of giants.

CHAPTER 39
The Difference

They were readying to attack Weedy Meadow. Elbryan knew that, could hear it in
the shriek of every bird, in the movements of squirrels, agitated by the
presence of such numbers, by the thunder of a giant's step or the rolling war
machines, by the croaks of powrie generals, the eager whines of bloodthirsty
goblins.
They were readying to attack Weedy Meadow, and Avelyn and Pony had not
been able to convince the townsfolk to leave -- not many, anyway, though now
with the storm cloud that was the goblin army hovering about the village, many
of the folk began to recognize their folly.
From a high vantage point some two miles south of the village, Elbryan saw
the villagers shoring up walls, scrambling about in preparation. None of it
would make any difference, the ranger knew. The only hope for Weedy Meadow's
four score people was to get out of the village and far away. And with the
goblins moving in from all sides, the only possibility of that was with the help
of the ranger and his friends.
But Elbryan had so few to work with. Besides Pony and Avelyn, who were
somewhere down amid that scrambling group, Elbryan had only the three trappers
and Bradwarden. The refugees from End-o'-the-World Were nowhere near ready for
another fight; half of them hadn't even uttered a word yet. The one advantage on
the ranger's side was his knowledge of the region surrounding Weedy Meadow. The
village was nestled in a land of steep hillsides and narrow valleys, where a
hundred sneaking people might pass unnoticed only a few dozen yards away. This
was a place of natural noises: running streams, cackling birds, and chattering
animals. A living forest, with enough pine and spruce to offer cover even now,
with winter fast holding the land.
"What're ye thinking?" Bradwarden asked, moving up quietly beside the
ranger.
 "We have to get them out."

"Not so easy a task, I'd be betting," replied the centaur, "else Avelyn
and Pony'd have them far away already." Bradwarden paused, watching Elbryan's
pained features as the man continued to stare to the north. The centaur
understood what the man was feeling, the sense of his own loss those years
before and the helplessness now in the face of a repeat of that disaster.
Bradwarden had watched Elbryan closely these last two days, since he had evaded
the monsters about End-o'-the-World and had crawled out of the forest. Always
had the ranger seemed stoic and often stern, but never as grim as now.
"We'll get Pony and Avelyn, at least," the centaur offered, "and some
others, I'm not doubting. Most won't go. Ye know that. They'll be staying with
their homes until they see the enemy, then they'll know their doom. Then, it'll
be too late for them."
Elbryan cocked an eyebrow. "Will it?" he asked simply.
Bradwarden didn't quite understand. Even if Elbryan and the trappers, all
the refugees from End-o'-the-World, and all the folk of Dundalis went in to
bolster the defenses of Weedy Meadow, the village would be flattened within an
hour. Elbryan knew that as surely as did the centaur, and yet, the sudden gleam
of determination on Elbryan's face left the centaur believing that the man had
some plan.
"There," Elbryan said, pointing to a position just east of the village, to
a pair of two-thousand-foot-tall mountains, their steep sides white with snow,
crossed by the dark lines of many leafless trees.
"The valley between those hills is full of boulders and pine groves," the
ranger explained. "Cover enough, if we move the folk quickly." Elbryan looked
down and patted Symphony's muscled neck, knowing full well that the horse not
only understood the plan but would help facilitate it.
"Ye'd choose the low ground for yer escape?" the centaur asked
incredulously.
"Too many trees," Elbryan answered without hesitation as the puzzle sorted
out before him. "They will get no clear shots or spear throws from above."
"They'll come down like a mass o' swooping hawks," Bradwarden protested.
Elbryan smiled wickedly as he considered those steep hillsides, all of
varied angles and deep with virgin snow. He thought of Avelyn and the magic
stones and some of the properties the monk had explained to him. He thought of
Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk, and their undeniable skills. "Will they?" he said
calmly, his tone so even and assured that the centaur sucked in his breath and
argued no more.

"How did you get in here?" Pony asked breathlessly, grabbing Elbryan in a
hug as soon as she spotted him entering the common room at Weedy Meadow. "We
know the goblins are all about."

"Thicker than you believe," Elbryan agreed, returning the hug tenfold. It
felt so good to him, so warm and fulfilling, that a very large part of the stoic
ranger wanted to whisk Pony away into the night, to run far away from this place
and its troubles and just live peacefully and lovingly.
He could not do that, could not forsake his duty and the destiny that he
had been shown by the Touel'alfar. For every thought of running away with Pony,
the ranger held five memories of the tragedy that had befallen his own family
and community.
Avelyn bounded over to the pair a moment later, the boisterous monk
seeming not so animated now. "Ah, but they wouldn't go," he wailed at Elbryan.
"They would not listen to our words, and even now, with darkness looming in the
forest, many insist that they will stay and fight."
 "Any who choose to stay and fight will surely die," Elbryan said, loud
enough for several nearby townsfolk to hear. A pair of grizzly men at a table
near the common room entrance stood up, one kicking the table away as he rose.
They glared at Elbryan for a long moment, but finally walked away, moving to the
other side of the large hall.
Undaunted, Elbryan moved to the long table that served as the bar, and
hopped atop it. "I tell you this only one time," the ranger proclaimed, and the
score of men and half that number of women in the room looked his way, most
disdainfully but some too fearful to show any outrage. "I have just crawled
through the ranks of our enemy, deep lines of goblins and giants and powrie
dwarves."
"Powries?" one woman echoed.
"Bah, a tale o' lies," someone answered from one corner.
"Your only chance will be to get far from this place," Elbryan said
bluntly, tossing the bloodred beret to the floor. "And even now, escape will nor
be easy. I will take those that I can with me tonight, soon after the moon has
set." The ranger paused and glanced around, locking stares with each of the
patrons, letting them see the intensity of his green eyes, the determination on
his face. "As for the rest of you, your window through the monstrous force will
be small and any hesitation will cost you dearly."
"Who are you to come in here and give orders?" one man demanded. Agreeing
protests rang from every corner of the room.
True to his word, the ranger did not repeat his message. He hopped down
from the table, gathered Pony and Avelyn in his wake, and bade them follow him
outside, where they might talk in private.
Elbryan didn't flinch nor did he look back threateningly when a mug
shattered against the wall beside the exit, a missile obviously aimed at the
back of his head.
Elbryan conferred with Avelyn first, to confirm the potential of the
magical stones. Then he talked more to Pony, who better understood the terrain
of this region, with its hilly forests and many streams.
"They, too, will come in through that valley," Pony reasoned as Elbryan
laid out the plan before her. "If they are as organized as your description of
the assault on End-o'-the-World indicates, they will not leave so open a route
behind them. They will come in through that valley, and will take the tops of
both hills."
"Not many will make it through," the ranger promised. "The goblin line
will be thin, and speed and surprise will be our allies. As for those on the
hills, three friends are already preparing for them."
Pony nodded, not doubting the ranger's words, but still, another part of
the plan troubled her deeply. "How can we place so much hope on animals?" she
asked.
Elbryan looked to Avelyn. "The turquoise," he explained. "It has given me
insight into Symphony's thoughts. I can talk to the horse with my mind, and he
understands. Of that I am sure."
Avelyn nodded, not doubting the power of the turquoise. The stone; as if
it were something sentient, had called to the monk on that day when he had
presented it to Elbryan and Symphony, and Avelyn, who had floated down the face
of a cliff, who had walked on water and unleashed tremendous fireballs, who had
held the power of a thunderstorm in his puny, mortal hands, would not discount
any possibilities of its God-given power.
"We have few options," Pony admitted.
"No other," Elbryan replied.
Avelyn saw the look that passed between them and he walked away, at first
aimlessly but then turning toward the cabin of the one family -- a widow and her
three small children -- that the three friends had agreed should leave with the
ranger this night.
 Pony and Elbryan spent a long and quiet moment together, ending it
wordlessly with a kiss that passed as a promise from Elbryan to the woman that
she would not be abandoned, and as a promise from Pony that she and those who
would leave would be ready when the moment of opportunity was upon them.
The ranger left Weedy Meadow that night, moving through the winding valley
east of the village with the fleeing family. The forest was quiet, but, as
Elbryan had suspected, it was not empty.
"Goblins," he mouthed silently to the woman, and he held up his open hand
to indicate their number at five. The ranger had an arrow ready on Hawkwing, but
he didn't want to kill any monsters this night, not in this pass, where any
bodies might alert the army to a possible hole in its raiding fines.
So they sat tight and waited, the woman working hard to keep her youngest
child, a mere infant, from crying.
The goblins moved close, so close that the five could hear their whining
voices, so close that the, crack of a stick underfoot sounded loud to the ranger
and the family.
Elbryan kept them down, tried to reassure them all by patting the other
two children softly, by showing them his weapons and that he was ready should
they be discovered.
The ranger, lying up front, said nothing when a goblin boot stepped firmly
on the cold ground barely three feet from his head. Elbryan held his breath and
clutched his hand axe, playing out in his mind the quickest and surest attack
should the goblin make any sudden move to indicate that it had spotted the
group.
But then the moment had passed, the goblins wandering on along their
patrol route in the valley, oblivious of the man and his refugees. The goblins'
ignorance saved the creatures' lives that night, for death was barely an arm's
length away; more important, the goblins' ignorance also saved Elbryan's plan.
* * *
The sky brightened to a dull gray shortly before the dawn, another lazy
snowstorm dropping scattered flakes that floated to and fro during their
descent. Elbryan and Bradwarden, on that same hill far to the south of Weedy
Meadow, watched for the start of it all, for the first signs of the attack they
knew would come this day.
"Ye left her there," the centaur said unexpectedly.
Elbryan cocked a curious eyebrow.
"The girl," the centaur explained. "Yer lover."
"More than a lover," Elbryan replied.
"And ye left her there," the centaur went on, "with ten thousand monsters
moving her way."
Elbryan continued to stare curiously at his. half-equine friend, not sure
whether Bradwarden was congratulating him or criticizing him.
"Ye left the woman ye love in harm's way."
The words hit Elbryan strangely, showed him a perspective that he had
hardly considered. "It was Pony's choice to stay, her duty --"
"She could die this day."
"Do you enjoy torturing me with your words?"
Bradwarden looked the ranger squarely in the face and laughed heartily.
"Torturing?" he asked. "I'm admiring ye, boy! Ye love the girl, but ye left her
in a town that's about to be sacked!"
"I trust her," Elbryan protested, too defensive to understand the
centaur's sincerity, "and trust in her."
"So I'm seeing," said Bradwarden. He put a hand on Elbryan's shoulder and
gave the man a sincere, admiring look. "And that's yer strength. Too many of yer
folk would've forced the girl by their side, to protect her. Ye're smart enough
to see that Pony needs little protecting."
Elbryan looked back to the north, to Weedy Meadow.
 "She could die this day," Bradwarden said evenly.
"So could we," Elbryan countered.
"So could ten thousand goblins." The centaur laughed.
Elbryan joined in, but the mirth was ended when a streaking line of fire
cut across the sky, a ball of flaming pitch, soaring for Weedy Meadow.
"Powrie catapult," Bradwarden said dryly.
"Time to go," replied Elbryan. He gave one last look at the distant
village, at the small fire. that had come up. Pony was in there, in harm's way.
Elbryan grimaced and let it go. He looked at the centaur, moving steadily
ahead of him, and at first he was angry with Bradwarden for bringing up the grim
possibilities. Until this time, Elbryan hadn't even considered the danger to
Pony on a personal level, so great was his trust in her. She would lead the
people out of Weedy Meadow, he had supposed, and though some of them might be
killed, Pony would not.
Bradwarden had made him face the truth of this day, and gradually the
ranger's anger became gratitude. He didn't trust Pony any less; he could control
his desires to rush to her side and protect her. Bradwarden had shown him the
truth of his relationship, the true depth of his love and trust for this woman
who had come back into his life. Elbryan nodded and smiled as he regarded the
centaur, sincerely grateful.

"Ho, ho, what!" the monk bellowed, running to the newest fire, clutching
the sheet of serpentine in his plump hand. Using the magical protection, Avelyn
walked right into the midst of the blaze, standing with flames licking to his
shoulders but smiling widely, to the amazement of those villagers witnessing the
sight.
The monk fell deeper into the magic of the stone, calling forth its
shielding powers, expanding its area of influence until this particular fire was
smothered.
Avelyn came out of his trance, only to find that another blaze was
burning, not so far away. "Ho, ho, what!" he bellowed again, pushing aside the
would-be village firefighters so that he could use his much more effective
method.
Despite the efforts of the mad friar, the rain of powrie fireballs
increased, coupled with bouncing boulders that smashed more than one home to
kindling. One fireball hit against the village's east wall, splattering the two
men standing nearby with burning pitch. Pony was quick to one, wrapping him in a
heavy blanket, and Avelyn got to the other, using the serpentine effectively.
"The gray stone!" Pony cried to the monk, indicating the hematite and the
badly burned man on the ground beside her. Avelyn went to him at once and eased
his pain, but the monk's expression turned more grim.
He was beginning to admit that he could not keep up with the barrage, and
he knew that even this was but a prelude to worse.
Pony left the man in Avelyn's caring hands and ran about the frantic
villagers, berating them for their folly in staying and reminding them that a
way out might soon be open.
She was not surprised that now, with fireballs slighting structures by the
minute and boulders crashing down about them, she found more people willing to
listen to Elbryan's plan. Still, despite the flaming evidence, many of the proud
and stubborn folk refused to admit that this was more than a simple goblin raid.
"We'll push them back," one man argued to her, "chase them into the woods
so far, they'll never find their stinking way out!"
Pony shook her head, trying to argue, but the man had too much support
from the five fellows standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him along the wall.
"Goblins!" the man insisted, and he spat at Pony's feet.
 The others started grumbling but went strangely silent an instant later,
and Pony looked up at them, then followed their gaze across the short field that
stood between the village and the edge of the trees.
A pair of fomorian giants, fifteen feet tall and ten times the weight of a
heavy man, paced back and forth in the shadows, eager to rush the wall.
"Damn big goblins," Pony replied sarcastically. She looked down at the
weapons the group earned -- shovels and pitchforks mostly, with only a single,
rusty old sword among them. Pony had given her own sword to the mother who had
left with had and now she carried only a slender club and -- a small axe,
weapons that looked puny indeed against the sheer bulk of those two giants.
She left the stubborn group with one final reminder. "The east wall," she
said grimly.
She found Avelyn near that wall, and paused as she approached, seeing a
slight bluish glow among the timbers of the one east gate. She looked at the
monk curiously.
Avelyn shrugged. "I did not know that the serpentine could enact a lasting
barrier," he said, "nor do I know how long I might maintain it. But be assured
that any fires brushing that gate will find no hold."
Pony put a hand to the monk's broad shoulder, glad indeed to have Brother
Avelyn on her side.
The pair turned abruptly a moment later when a shout from the north wall
told them that the attack was on.
* * *
Elbryan was running hard to keep up with Bradwarden; Symphony had taken to the
woods, disappearing as a shadow might when the sun goes behind dark clouds.
"I cannot slow!" the centaur called, and then he grunted as the ranger
grabbed fast to his tail, the man half running, half flying behind the swift
creature.
They came to their base camp, where Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk waited:
"They're filling the valley," Paulson explained, "a long line, goblins
mostly, and not so deep."
"Powries on the hills," Cric piped in.
"But the traps are set?" Elbryan asked.
All three nodded eagerly.
Elbryan closed his eyes and sent his thoughts out to Symphony, and heard
the horse's response clearly. Satisfied, he looked again at his immediate
companions. "We must pick our targets carefully," the ranger explained. "We must
thin their line wherever we may, and take out any giants or those monsters that
can get out of harm's way." The ranger looked back to the east. "Let Symphony do
the rest," he explained.
The group started off quietly, Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk going along the
base of the north hill, Elbryan and Bradwarden making their way to the south.

Agile Pony got to the roof quickly and fell flat to her belly, crawling
low as spears arched over her, as the monstrous horde came on toward the north
gate. She peeked over the edge of the roof, back into the village, and saw that
only three of the five at the wall remained alive, and they were fleeing fast.
The two giants banged against the fortified wall for a moment, then simply
stepped over it.
Pony held her breath at that dangerous moment, but fortunately the two
giants were too concerned with the townsfolk to notice her. They strode past
into the village, men and women fleeing before them, screaming, finally
admitting their folly in staying.
"Ho, ho, what!" came a familiar cry, and Pony looked past the giants to
see Brother Avelyn standing steady before them.
A spear nearly got the distracted woman. She spun about as a goblin's head
appeared above the edge of the roof. Pony's club sent the monster tumbling away,
but she noted that a hundred more were climbing all about the wall, eager for
human blood. With a growl, the woman threw her club into the face of the closest
one, and it, too, fell back. Then she gave a quick glance to the east, which was
still quiet.
"Damn," the woman muttered and she put her legs under her and ran for the
southwestern corner of the roof, leaping far into the air and grabbing the
closest giant by the hair. Her momentum brought her right in front of the
monster, their faces inches apart, and Pony wasted no time in planting her axe
into that gruesome visage.
The giant howled, the woman fell away, landing in a roll, and the second
giant turned to her, ready to squash her flat.
"Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn bellowed his signature cry, one he used now to
release the mounting energies of the graphite he held.
A forked blast of blue-white lightning erupted from the monk's hand, one
finger of the bolt striking each giant. The one Pony had hit in the face, its
hands up to cover the wound, went flying backward, hitting the wall waist high
and flipping right over it, crushing a goblin in the process. The other giant,
its foot high to stamp Pony, jolted straight and stood trembling, too stunned to
react as its intended victim ran off.
Pony rushed to Avelyn. She looked all about desperately. Goblins were
crawling over the walls like ants; hundreds and hundreds, their sheer numbers
burying any townsfolk who stood to challenge them.
"Fighting in the east!" one man yelled, running to Pony and Avelyn. "Where
is your plan?" he added sarcastically, hopelessly.
Pony ran with him back toward the eastern gate, while Avelyn held the rear
guard, loosing another lighting bolt that launched a dozen goblins from the
rooftop Pony had just abandoned.
A powrie crawled atop the eastern wall directly in front of Pony and the
villager, not so far from the gate.
"Where is your plan?" the man demanded again of Pony, his desperate
question echoing off the anxious faces of all the villagers gathered near the
wall.
The powrie stood tall on the eastern wall, but then kept moving forward,
curiously, falling headlong over the structure and landing in the dirt, very
still.
A long arrow protruded from its back, an arrow with fletchings familiar to
the woman.
"There is my plan," she replied confidently.
A moment later came the thunder of hoofbeats to the east, many hoofbeats
accompanied by the screams of those unfortunate goblins caught in front of the
wild horse stampede.
"Avelyn!" Pony yelled.
"Ho, ho, what!" the monk replied, loosing yet another lightning bolt, this
time into the ground at the feet of a horde of goblins that were charging
straight for him. The jolt sent the entire group of monsters two feet off the
ground.
Pony grabbed a pitchfork from one of the men nearby and ran to the eastern
gate, bravely throwing it open.
There stood a pair of goblins, stunned that the gate had opened before
them. Pony took one in the throat with the pitchfork. The other turned to flee,
but was cut down almost immediately, an arrow striking it right between the
eyes. Pony looked back and spotted Elbryan sitting on a low branch of a tree on
the northern side of the ravine. Below the ranger, Bradwarden ran back and
forth, trampling goblins and powries or bashing them down with his heavy cudgel.
The centaur tapped one powrie on the head, then scooped up the dazed dwarf and
dropped it into a sack.
 Pony didn't have time to consider the move, for the thunder approached,
led by powerful Symphony. Goblins and powries scattered or were crushed beneath
the charge, a hundred wild horses stampeding along the ravine.
"Avelyn!" Pony cried, and the monk rushed past her; she noted that he was
glowing slightly, that same bluish hue as the eastern gate.
Pony held the townsfolk back as Avelyn ran out among the goblins. Most
were too confused and frightened to attack, but some did charge.
Avelyn held forth his hand -- Pony caught sight of a red sparkle from
within his grasp.
A huge ball of fire encircled the monk and consumed all the nearby
monsters. A hot wind brushed Pony's face and blew into the stunned villagers
standing beside her.
When the flames dissipated an instant later, Avelyn stood alone and the
way was open.
Almost open; a powrie came rushing out from behind a stone, its hair
burned away, its face blackened, its club no more than a withered arid charred
stick. But the dwarf was very much alive, and very angry. It howled and whooped
and charged Avelyn, ready to throttle the monk with its bare hands.
In his other hand, Avelyn clutched a third stone, brown and striped with
black-tiger's paw, it was called. Now the monk fell into this stone's magic,
letting go the fire shield of the serpentine. A moment later, Avelyn was
screaming in agony, not from the powrie -- that enemy hadn't caught up to him
yet -- but from the work of his own transforming magic that was bending and
breaking the bones in Avelyn's left arm. Fingers crunched and shortened,
fingernails narrowed and slipped back under the knuckles, and then came a great
itching as orange and black fur erupted all along the length of the arm.
The powrie got to the monk, but Avelyn had recovered now. He was whole
again -- except that his left arm was no longer the arm of Brother Avelyn but
that of a powerful tiger.
With a mere thought, Avelyn extended his claws and raked them across,
taking the face off of the stunned powrie.
Now the way was clear.
From further down the valley, Symphony charged in, followed by his equine
minions. The stampede came to a skidding halt, the wild horses accepting riders,
villagers. Pony climbed atop Symphony, and Avelyn, standing with Elbryan as the
ranger ran in, waited behind to cover the retreat.
Both Pony and Elbryan sucked in their breath at the sight of Avelyn's arm,
but neither spoke of it at that desperate moment.
Then away thundered Symphony and the hundred horses, fifty of Weedy
Meadow's eighty inhabitants holding fast to manes, terrified, and scores of
goblins and powries scrambling to the hills, trying to get out of the way.
Down those hills came the powries, outraged by the apparent escape, but
Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk had done their work well. Deadfalls, pit traps, and
jaw traps stopped many; in one place a dropping pile of logs triggered a small
avalanche of loose snow and rock.
Those monsters that did make it down found Bradwarden and his cudgel
waiting for them, the centaur kicking and smashing with abandon. Avelyn's
graphite shot out again, back toward Weedy Meadow's eastern gate, scattering
those goblins coming in close pursuit and opening the way for Elbryan, who
insisted that he go back for any stragglers.
The ranger found a giant coming hard his way, stomping across the village,
outraged and already hurt by one of the monk's lightning blasts.
Hawkwing's bowstring hummed repeatedly, an arrow thudding into the giant's
chest, followed by one to its belly, another to its chest, and then a third
nicking off huge ribs, and then a second in the belly.
Each hit slowed the behemoth a bit more, allowed Elbryan yet another
devastating shot. Finally, the stubborn monster slumped down.
 Several frightened men ran right over its back as it tumbled, a horde of
shrieking goblins close on their heels.
Elbryan knelt by the gate, taking careful aim and picking off the closest
monsters one by one.
"Avelyn, I need you!" the ranger cried. The situation was even more
desperate than Elbryan initially believed, as he discovered when he looked up to
see a goblin standing atop the wall, some five feet to the side of the gate,
ready to pounce upon him.
But Avelyn couldn't immediately help, the monk preoccupied with a group of
powries coming hard down the south hill, having dodged the trappers' pitfalls.
Elbryan turned to meet the pounce, but even as the goblin came on, silver
flickers caught the ranger's eye. The monster landed right beside the ranger,
but it was dead before it hit the ground, three daggers sticking from the side
of its neck and chest. Elbryan glanced back to a smiling Chipmunk, the man
running off to engage another confused powrie.
"Avelyn!" Elbryan called again, more insistently. The ranger put up his
bow and cut down one more goblin as the group of men ran out the gate and
scrambled past him.
Elbryan fell back in a roll; goblins filled the gate and poured out.
Avelyn's lightning blast laid them low.
Then they were off and running, all of them, Elbryan and the three
trappers, Bradwarden and Avelyn, and all the latest refugees of Weedy Meadow,
following the tentative trail opened to them by the horse stampede.
They ran all the morning, fighting often, but only quick skirmishes. They
followed the obvious trail and were guided along even more cunning ways by
Elbryan, the ranger following Symphony's call.
One stubborn group of thirty powries stayed with them all the way, hooting
and hollering, throwing daggers and axes whenever they got close enough, and
only crying out with more fervor whenever Elbryan or Bradwarden paused and let
fly an arrow, inevitably taking one of the dwarves down.
Avelyn, huffing and puffing; and too weary to attempt another stone use,
moaned and complained that the others should leave his fat body behind. Elbryan
would hear none of that, of course, and neither would Bradwarden. The powerful
centaur was still carrying the sack with the kicking powrie, and somehow
managing to put his great bow to use every so often, but he still had enough
strength to allow the fat monk up on his back.
The horse trail continued to the east, but Elbryan called for a turn to
the south, leading his group, more sliding than running, down a thickly wooded
hillside that ended in a half-frozen stream and a field covered with snow beyond
that. They splashed across and ran on, the powries coming in furious pursuit now
that their prey was in the open.
"Why'd we go this way?" one villager crud out in desperation, seeing the
stubborn, untiring dwarves gaining steadily.
The man got his answer as grim-faced Pony, sitting tall atop Symphony,
came out of the trees across the way, flanked on each side by a score of angry
villagers and their spirited mounts.
Elbryan's group ran on; the powries skidded to an abrupt halt and tried to
turn.
Pony led the thunderous charge and not a dwarf got off that field alive --
except for the unfortunate one kicking futilely in Bradwarden's sack.

The encampment that night, closer to Dundalis than to Weedy Meadow, was
filled with a bittersweet atmosphere. More than sixty of the village's eighty
folk had escaped, but that meant that nearly a score had died, and all their
homes were lost.
"You sent him away?" Pony asked Elbryan as the ranger approached the
campfire she and Avelyn shared.
 "I could not tolerate that in the camp," Elbryan explained.
"How could you tolerate it at all?" Avelyn asked.
"How could I stop it?" Elbryan was quick to reply.
"Good point," the monk conceded. "Ho, ho, what!"
Elbryan looked at Pony, and each shuddered, thinking of brutal Bradwarden
and his planned meal. Elbryan had interrogated the captured powrie, getting no
information of any value, and then the centaur had claimed the dwarf as his
catch -- and as his dinner.
He had promised Elbryan that he would kill the wretched creature quickly,
at least.
The ranger had to be satisfied with that; he and the refugees were in no
position to take on a prisoner, especially one as fierce and stupidly bold as
that powrie.
"We did well," Avelyn remarked, handing a bowl to Elbryan and motioning to
a cauldron not so far away.
The ranger held up his hand, having little appetite this night.
Avelyn only shrugged and went back to his meal.
"You did well," Elbryan remarked to the man. "Your fireball opened the way
for Symphony -- and even the help of the horses would not have been possible
without the magic of the turquoise. And your lightning bolts saved many lives,
my own included."
"And mine," Pony added, rubbing the fat monk's back.
Avelyn looked at her, then at Elbryan, his expression truly content. He
even forgot his food for a moment, just sat back and considered the events and
the role he and his God-given stones had played.
"For years I have wondered if I chose correctly in taking the stones,"
Avelyn explained a moment later. "Always have I been followed by doubts, by
fears that my actions were not truly in the spirit of God but only in my own
misguided interpretation of that spirit."
"Today proves you right, then," Elbryan said quietly.
Avelyn nodded, feeling truly vindicated. A moment later, he caught the
look that passed between Elbryan and Pony, and politely excused himself. There
were many wounded in the encampment that night, including some who might need
further help from Avelyn and his hematite.
"I could not save Weedy Meadow," Elbryan said to the woman when they were
alone.
Pony looked all around, leading Elbryan's gaze to the men and women, to
the children who would have surely died this day had not the ranger and his
friends ushered them away.
"I am satisfied," Elbryan admitted. "The town could not be saved, but so
different this is from the day of our own tragedy."
"We did not have a ranger to look over us," Pony replied with a grin.
That smile could not hold, though, lost in the bittersweet blend of
tragedy present and tragedy past. The two moved closer together, huddled in each
other's arms before the fire, and said not another word, each lost in their
memories of their own loss but with the satisfaction that this day, they had
been the difference.

CHAPTER 40
Nightbird the Leader

"They are not burning the town," Elbryan remarked as he, Pony, Bradwarden, and
Avelyn looked toward Dundalis.
"Why would they?" the centaur asked. "The place was empty before they ever
got there."
 "True enough," Elbryan replied, for the folk of Dundalis, with sixty-three
witnesses from Weedy Meadow and a score from End-o'-the-World telling tales of
utter disaster, had not been hard to convince. All of Dundalis' folk had
followed Elbryan into the woods to the camps the ranger and his friends had
constructed, hidden deep and far from the trails.
"But neither did they burn Weedy Meadow," Pony observed, "nor End-o'-the-
World before that."
Elbryan looked grimly at Bradwarden.
"Supply towns," the centaur said, his tone grave.
"That means they are continuing south," Avelyn remarked, his voice
cracking on the words. "How far?"
"Few villages south of here," Bradwarden said. "Nothing much all the way
to the great river."
"Palmaris," Avelyn muttered helplessly.
A long, silent moment passed as the gravity of the situation settled more
deeply over the four friends.
"We can do little to stop such an army," Elbryan declared. "But our duty
is threefold: to hurt the monsters in any way that we can, to send word ahead so
that the villages and even the great city are not caught unaware, and to care
for those who have fallen under our protection."
"A hundred and sixty," Bradwarden said. "And I haven't yet' counted them
all. Worse, no more than a third o' them're able to fight against the likes of a
single goblin."
"We must work with them, then," Elbryan declared, "usher those who cannot
fight to safety and use those who can and will do battle to our best advantage."
"A huge task, ranger," Bradwarden remarked.
Elbryan stared at him long and hard.
"I'm with ye," the centaur grumbled a moment later, "though not for the
taste o' powrie, I tell ye. Tough little bugs!"
"Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn howled.
They went to the task that very day, sorting the refugees into those who
would stay and fight with Elbryan, and those who would be sent to safer havens,
into caves that Bradwarden knew of some distance to the east of Dundalis or even
into the more human-controlled southlands, if a route could be found. When they
finished the initial round, Elbryan found that he had more than seven score who
would need to be relocated, leaving him just over twenty able-bodied warriors.
And they were indeed a ragtag band; the best among them, other than Pony,
Bradwarden, and Avelyn, was probably unreliable Paulson or the always
irritating, disagreeable Tol Yuganick.
Pony pointed out that very fact to Elbryan when they sat together that
evening. "You should send him south with the refugees," she noted, indicating
the grumbling Tol, who was walking about the encampment, bullying any who
crossed his path.
"He is strong and good with a spear," Elbryan countered.
"And he'll fight you all the way," Pony said. "Tol will demand control,
and his continuing rage will certainly put him, and any who follow him, into a
position from which there will be no escape."
Elbryan couldn't really disagree. At least with Paulson, the ranger had
some idea that the man was willing to follow directions; Paulson and his two
companions, after all, had laid traps on the hillsides east of Weedy Meadow
exactly as Elbryan had bade them.
"Send him off with the unfit," Pony said again, more forcefully. "Let
Belster O'Comely deal with the brute, else I fear that you and Tol will cross
swords, and it would not do for you to be killing one of our own in front of the
others."
Elbryan thought she was perhaps being a bit overdramatic, but he had to
admit that he and Tol had come close to blows several times over the previous
few months -- and then in situations not nearly as tense as the one that surely
lay before them.
"When will you send the band south?" Pony asked, wisely giving Elbryan
some breathing room before he was forced into such a difficult decision.
"Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk are off scouting the area even now," the
ranger replied, "swinging west to confirm the occupation of Weedy Meadow and
End-o'-the-World and then south to see what roads lie open. When they return in
a few days, we might decide what to do with the refugees."
Pony nodded, considering the plan. "If they will soon return, then they
will not go far to the south, not to the next villages in line, Caer Tinella and
Landsdown, and certainly not to Palmaris," she reasoned. "You must send an
emissary soon if the southland is to be properly warned."
Elbryan sighed deeply, agreeing fully with her observation. He knew the
proper course before him, knew the perfect choice, a person possessed of both
tact and skills, battle and horsemanship, but it was a decree the ranger did not
wish to utter.
Pony did it for him. "Symphony will bear me?" she asked, drawing the
ranger's gaze to her own.
Elbryan paused and looked long and hard at the woman, at his love. They
had been reunited for so short a time, how could he bear to part with her again?
Despite that turmoil, Elbryan found himself nodding. Symphony would indeed carry
Pony; the great stallion had already indicated as much to Elbryan.
"Then I will be away before the dawn," Pony said firmly.
Elbryan sighed again, and Pony took his face in her hands, turned him to
her, and pulled him close, kissing him gently.
"I will go all the way to Palmaris, if I must," she promised, "and then I
will return to your side. Symphony will see me there and back again. No goblin,
no powrie, no giant will catch me."
Elbryan, who had felt the wind, the rush of Symphony's run, didn't doubt
that for a minute. "And you must return to me," he whispered, "to fight beside
me and to lie beside me in the quiet night, when all the troubles of the day
must be put to peace."
Pony kissed him again, longer and harder this time. All around them, the
camp was settling down, save the occasional grumble from ugly Tol, and the pair
slipped away sometime later into the forest to a private place.

True to her word, Pony was riding hard to the south as the sun crested the
eastern horizon. She had not gone without two meetings, though, one a very
private discussion with Elbryan and the other, unexpectedly, with Brother
Avelyn, who was waiting for her when she walked out of the camp.
"Symphony is not far," the monk explained. "I saw him on that ridge just a
few minutes ago. Waiting for you, I should guess."
Pony gave a crooked smile, her wonderment at the continuing intelligence
shown by the animal -- now seeming to be so much more than an ordinary horse --
clearly displayed on her features.
"As I was waiting for you," Avelyn huffed.
"Symphony would not carry us both," Pony said dryly.
"What?" asked Avelyn. "Ho, ho, good laugh, that!"
The man's mirth disappeared almost immediately, and the suddenly grim set
of his heavy jowls made Pony believe he was concerned for her safety.
"I will return," she promised.
Avelyn nodded. "And all the faster," he explained, holding forth a silver
circlet, "with this."
Pony took the band tentatively, knowing as soon as she saw the gemstone
set in the silver in front that this `was much more than something ornamental.
The gem was unlike anything she had seen before, yellowish-green with a black
streak down its middle.
 "Cat's eye," Avelyn explained. He took the circlet back from her and set
it about her forehead.
"With it, you will see clearly in the dark of night," the monk explained.
Indeed, the mounting light of dawn still a while away seemed suddenly
brighter to Pony. Not brighter, exactly, but every object became much more
distinct. Pony looked at Avelyn, suddenly very appreciative of the training he
had given her with the magical stones but somewhat surprised that she could call
forth the magic of this cat's eye so readily.
"How is it that the stone will work so easily for me?" she asked. "And am
I now ready to unleash fireballs and bolts of lightning as you did in the battle
in Weedy Meadow?" Pony's expression grew sly. "Is the power, then, wholly of the
stones?" she asked. "And if that is so, then why is Avelyn so blessed?"
"Ho, but that hurt!" the good-natured monk bellowed. "Ho, ho, what!
Blessed indeed, say some, but cursed, say I, with such a supportive friend as
this!"
"Ho, but that hurt!" Pony echoed, imitating Avelyn's voice, and they
shared a much-needed laugh.
"The power comes from both stone and user," Avelyn explained in all
seriousness, a lesson he had explained to her many times during their weeks on
the road. "Some stones, though, such as the turquoise I gave to Elbryan and he
to Symphony, can be altered to perform their magic continually, whoever their
holder might be. Stones become magical items, so to speak, useful to the layman.
I have seen such minor charms, and so have you, I would guess, among the farmers
or the minor seers of the lands."
"And you prepared this one," Pony reasoned, tapping the cat's eye.
"For you," replied Avelyn, "or for myself or perhaps for Elbryan. Ho, ho,
what! Wherever it is most needed, I say, and now, that will be with you. Take it
and use it to guide Symphony well through the night when our enemies will not be
aware."
A snort from the side caught their attention and they turned to see the
magnificent stallion standing again atop the nearby ridge, eager to run, as if
he had been eavesdropping on their conversation.
"I doubt Symphony will need much guidance," Pony said, "day or night."
"Use it to keep your head from smacking into low branches, then." Avelyn
laughed, drawing a short-lived smile from Pony.
Short-lived, because it was time for the woman to go.
Avelyn turned tier around suddenly as soon as she had started away. The
monk held his hand out to her, and when she took it, he gave her another stone,
a piece of graphite, the stone used to create lightning.
"Perhaps you are ready," Avelyn said with respect.
Pony clenched the graphite tightly, nodded once, and walked away.

The day was clear and crisp but bitterly cold, the north wind blowing
steadily, and Elbryan had to wonder if winter would ever give up its grip upon
the land.
Later that morning, the ranger gathered together the men and a few women
who would remain with him as his fighting force. "We cannot defeat the enemy
that has come to our homes," he told them bluntly. "They are too great in
number."
That brought a few grumbles, including. a sarcastic, "Inspirational," from
Tol Yuganick.
"But we can hurt them," Elbryan went on. "And perhaps our efforts here
will make the war --"
"War?" Tol demanded.
"You still think this no more than a raiding party?" Elbryan scolded. "Ten
thousand goblins have passed through Weedy Meadow since its fall, passed through
and continued south."
 Tol snorted and waved his hand dismissively.
"Our efforts here will make the war easier on those in the south," Elbryan
said loudly, to quench the rising dissent, "to help Caer Tinella and Landsdown,
and even Palmaris, where we believe this army to be headed."
"Bah!" Tol snorted. "The words of a fool, I say! The goblin scum have
taken Dundalis, so to Dundalis we must go, to drive them far."
"To die," Elbryan put in before the big man could gain any momentum. "Only
to die." Elbryan walked over to stand right before Tol, the tension mounting
with each step. They were about the same height, but Tol, with his barrel-like
torso and ample belly, was heavier.
The man puffed out his chest and glared hard at the ranger.
"I'll not stop any who wish to follow Tol Yuganick into Dundalis," the
ranger said after a long and tense moment, "or into Weedy Meadow or End-o'-the-
World or wherever else you choose as your graveyard. These woods have many
places I can camp so you'll not be able to betray me when the goblins pull off
your fingernails or hold you down and smash your privates with hammers."
Even Tol blanched a bit at that notion.
"No, you'll not betray me or my cause, but neither will I cry for your
pain, neither will I risk those who wisely choose my way, to rescue those who
willingly went to such a death."
It was enough for one day, Elbryan decided, for the first day of putting
his soldiers in line, so the ranger slowly walked away from Tol, then off the
field to the edge of the forest, where stood an amused Bradwarden.
"Oh, nice touch with the hammer story," the centaur greeted him.
Elbryan gave a wry smile, but it couldn't last. He was too concerned with
Pony's opinion of Tol as a troublemaker and with the fact that Pony was probably
already many miles away.
"We've -- ye've a long way to go to get them in line," the centaur
remarked.
Elbryan was all too aware of that grim fact.
"But I gave ye little credit when ye didn't kill the three rogues,"
Bradwarden offered.
"You said I should have killed them," the ranger reminded, drawing an
embarrassed snort from the centaur.
"So I did! So I did!" Bradwarden replied. "And the three've proven
themselves worthy o' yer mercy ten times over!"
"They are valuable allies," Elbryan added.
"Ye'll have a tougher time with that one," Bradwarden remarked, lifting
his bearded chin toward Tol Yuganick, who was still standing in the small field,
looking none too happy. "He's not for respecting ye, ranger. Might that ye
should take him into the woods and beat him about."
Elbryan only smiled, but Bradwarden's suggestion did not seem like such a
bad idea.
The mood of all the encampment brightened considerably that night when a
dozen stragglers -- more refugees from End-o'-the-World and mostly under the age
of fifteen -- wandered in, seeming dazed and sorely hungry; several had minor
wounds, but otherwise all were physically sound. They told their remarkable tale
to the group, and then their two leaders, a middle-aged couple, repeated the
story in depth to Elbryan and Avelyn.
They had fled the town with the others as the goblin horde descended upon
it, heading for the forest. But they had not gotten away cleanly and were forced
to separate from the main group. Later that night, they had found themselves
cornered in a rocky ravine by powries and a pair of giants, but, as the woman
explained it, "The air came alive, like the buzzing of a million bees;" and when
the confusion ended, all their would-be murderers lay dead, the victims of many
small puncture wounds.
It sounded all too familiar to Elbryan Wyndon.
 "Then we were guided," the man added, "through the woods by night, camping
in the day."
"By whom?" the ranger asked eagerly. "Who was it that led you to this
place?"
The man shrugged and pointed to one young boy, sleeping near the fire, a
lad of no more than six years. "Shawno said he talked to them," the man
explained. " `Tools,' he called them."
"Tools?" echoed Avelyn, mystified.
"Not 'Tools,"' Elbryan explained. "Touel." The ranger looked hard at the
boy. He would have to speak with that one in the morning, after the child had
rested and eaten.

CHAPTER 41
Tempest

"Uncle Mather?"
Elbryan waited for a long while in the dimly lit cave, the day outside
gray and hinting again of snow. He was not physically uncomfortable, for this
place he had been using as Oracle, a hole beneath a wide pine, remained
surprisingly dry; and, sheltered from the bite of the north wind, the air was
not so cold.
The ranger was anxious, and he wanted to converse with the spirit this
late afternoon, to tell his uncle Mather of the responsibilities that had
befallen him, of the abrupt change that had come into his life, into the lives
of all the folk on the borders of the Wilderlands. He realized then that Pony
had been his sounding board, his confidant, and that since she had returned to
him, he had not often been to Oracle.
But now Pony was gone, on the road with Symphony.
The ranger prayed that his uncle Mather would respond openly this time,
would offer him some solid answers, as Pony had done, but that had never before
been the way of the Oracle. This time, Elbryan feared, the answers and the
strength were not within him, waiting for him to discover them.
He called again, softly, then again nearly half an hour later, when the
cave had grown so dark that the keen-eyed ranger could hardly make out the edges
of the mirror, let alone any spirit image within the glass.
Elbryan closed his eyes and recounted the events in his mind. The boy from
End-o'-the-World, Shawno, had been of little help, but Elbryan remained
convinced that it was indeed the Touel'alfar who had rescued that fleeing group
from the monstrous hordes.
But where were the elves, then? Surely Belli'mar Juraviel, if he was in
the area, would have made some contact with Elbryan.
Surely Tuntun would have to come to him, if for no other reason than to
tell him how miserably he had failed in protecting the three towns!
The ranger was startled when he opened his eyes to see the reflection of a
small light" a candle, burning softly in the depths of the mirror, its sharp
glow dulled by a whitish haze whose source Elbryan could not discern.
No, it was not a reflection, the ranger suddenly realized, but a light
within the glass!
A moment later, Elbryan sucked in his breath, for there, at the corner of
the glass stood the quiet apparition of, he knew in his heart, his father's
brother.
"Uncle Mather," he said softly, "glad I am that you heeded my call this
troubled day."
The image stood silently, unblinking.
 Where to begin? Elbryan wondered. "The towns have fallen, all three," he
blurted, "but many of the folk escaped, including nearly all those from Weedy
Meadow and all of Dundalis."
The image hardly moved, but Elbryan sensed the spirit was pleased with
Elbryan, if not with the situation.
"And so we are hiding," the ranger went on, "and it is difficult, for
winter remains. Now I must get those who cannot fight to safety in the south;
that I know and am already seeking to arrange. And the southland will be warned
by Pony, my beloved, returned to me and flying fist across the miles upon
Symphony. But as for the rest, Uncle Mather, for those who would remain and
fight, my course is unclear."
The ranger paused and waited, hoping for some response.
"I would choose to use them against the invaders," Elbryan said at length,
when no answer was forthcoming. "I can form them into something devilish, a
swift and secret band that strikes our. enemy in the night and flies away before
the goblins and powries can retaliate."
Again, the ranger had the feeling that the specter was pleased.
"So much stronger shall we be if my suspicions are correct," Elbryan went
on, "if the Touel'alfar are in the area, ready to lend their silverel bows to
our cause. Do you know? Are they somewhere close..."
Elbryan's voice trailed off as the image in the mirror shifted, as though
the lens that was the mirror was drawing back from that single shielded candle,
widening to include many others, little burning huts of snow, they seemed, set
in a familiar field.
"Uncle Mather?" Elbryan asked, but the image of the specter was no more,
just the field of candles, flickering under the dulling whiteness, dying,
gradually dying, until the mirror, until all the small cave, went absolutely
dark.
Elbryan sat there for a long while, considering the course before him. The
moon had set when he at last crawled out of the hole, and there, waiting for
him, fiddling with some stones, was Brother Avelyn. The monk had set a torch in
the nook of a low branch of a nearby tree, its orange light casting twisted
shadows across the ground.
"Cold night," the monk remarked dryly. "A true friend would have come out
much earlier."
"I knew not that you were here waiting," Elbryan replied, and then he
paused and looked hard at the man. "I did not know that you even knew of this
place."
"Shown to me by the stones," the monk replied, and he held up one of the
stones, a coin-sized quartz.
"You sought me out, then."
"We have much work before us, my friend," said Avelyn.
Elbryan didn't disagree.
"This is no simple raid, not even a simple invasion," said Avelyn.
"A simple invasion?" echoed Elbryan, for surely the words sounded curious
when put together. "Can an invasion be simple?"
"If it is without greater purpose," replied the monk. "Powries have oft
come to Honce-the-Bear's coastline, striking hard and charging inland until
their thirst for blood and pillage is sated. Then their ranks break apart from
their constant infighting, they go away, and the land heals. It has been that
way for all of time, I believe."
"But this time is different," reasoned the ranger.
"That is my fear," said Avelyn.
"Yet it would seem as if this monstrous force of creatures so hateful and
so different from one another would be more likely to turn on itself," Elbryan
said.
 "So they would," muttered Avelyn. "So they would, were it not for a
guiding hand of the greatest strength."
Elbryan leaned back against the wide tree, having nothing to offer on that
point. He remembered the murmuring of the elves soon before his departure, the
whispers of a dactyl demon awakened in the north. "And if you are right?" he
asked finally.
Avelyn's face turned grave. "Then I see my destiny," the monk remarked.
"Then I understand what prophetic, divine being guided my hand when I filled my
pouch with the stones of St.-Mere-Abelle. Even the choice of which stones to
take was made for me, then, by something above --"
"I envy you your faith," said the ranger. "For myself, I feel that our
destiny is our own to choose, our mistakes our own to make, our choices wrought
of freedom."
Avelyn thought for a moment, then nodded. "A different way of looking at
the same thing," he decided. "My choice that day was based on all that had
transpired previously in my life, was the culmination of a course that had begun
long before I entered the Abellican Order. I feel that I am right with my God,
ranger, and if my suspicions as to the nature of the beast are true, then I see
my course before me. That is all. I thought I should let it be known to you."
"Because you are leaving."
"Not yet," Avelyn replied quickly, "and know that I am with you, at your
command. I will use the stones and all my talents, and all my body in whatever
course you set. For now."
Elbryan nodded, satisfied that the monk would be of great help -- as he
had already been. The ranger didn't underestimate Avelyn in the least; without
the man and his magic, many more would have fallen at Weedy Meadow. And by
Elbryan's measure, Avelyn's bravery in all that he had done -- in taking the
stones and fleeing St.-Mere-Abelle, in facing Brother Justice, and in aiding
against the monsters-was above question.
"Do you believe in visions?" the ranger asked suddenly. "In prophecy?"
Avelyn looked at him hard. "Did I not just say as much?" he returned.
"And how is one to know if a vision is true or a deception?" the ranger
asked.
"Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn boomed. "You've seen something this night in your
hole!"
Elbryan smiled. "But how am I to know its source and its outcome?"
Avelyn laughed all the harder. "The responsibility weighs on you heavily,"
the monk replied. "You consider the vision more closely because so many people
depend upon you now, because any course you take will draw many others in your
wake. Ho, ho, what! Relieve your mind of the burden, then decide, my friend.
What would be your course had you seen this vision without the responsibilities
that have been placed on your strong shoulders?"
Elbryan paused for a long while, studying this man, thinking Avelyn as
wise as any of the elves who had been so instrumental in the making of Elbryan
the Nightbird.
Then he knew what he must do. And with only a few hours of darkness left
before him, and without Symphony to take him swiftly, he knew that he must make
haste.
"Your pardon, my friend," he said.
"A vision calls?"
Elbryan nodded.
"Would you need my company, then?" Avelyn asked.
Elbryan looked at him again and was glad of the man's offer. He felt that
he might indeed need help this night, but he understood, too, that the vision,
whatever it foretold, was for him alone. He walked to Avelyn and patted the huge
man on the shoulder. "I need you to help Bradwarden," he explained, "to keep the
people on the right course."
 Avelyn didn't look over his shoulder to watch the ranger disappear into
the night.
The diamond-shaped grove was eerily quiet, with no rustle of wind nor the
call of any animal, of any night bird, to stir the still air. Elbryan wished
that he had gotten here before moonset, when he could better see the rolling
fields of snow surrounding the dark grove. He considered the sack he had
retrieved before coming out to this place, bulging with candles, and he wondered
if he should first light the area.
It didn't matter, the ranger decided boldly, and went to work. He moved
slowly and carefully about the field, building domes of snow the size of his two
cupped hands. Then he carefully hollowed each out and placed a single candle
within. When he was finished with his task, when he had but one candle
remaining, the ranger put flint to steel and lit it, then went steadily about
the field, lighting each candle in turn, until all the area was glowing softly
from two score muffled lights, points in the darkness.
Elbryan knew not how long the candles would last, how long it would take
their heat to melt the snow domes above them, the droplets falling to extinguish
the flames. He stood for a long time and the domes burned -- too long, it seemed
to him, and he suspected then that something beyond the ordinary was happening
here, that some other force was at work in keeping those candles burning.
He heard his name called softly. Turning to the dark row of stately pines,
the ranger instinctively understood the source. He moved inside the grove,
across the covering of snow to the secret cairn.
Something was terribly wrong, Elbryan realized, terribly out of sorts, as
if the very harmony of this place had somehow been stolen away. Suddenly this
holy place, this place he had presumed prepared by the Touel'alfar themselves,
seemed to him no sanctuary at all.
Elbryan leaned heavily on Hawkwing, staring at the cairn, and it took him
some time to realize that he could see the stones far too distinctly, that there
was simply too much light here.
Its source was the cairn itself, glowing green!
Elbryan could hardly draw breath as he noticed one of the top stones
shift. He wanted to turn and flee; every survival instinct within the ranger
told him to run away.
But he could not flee, held in place by something he did not understand,
by something beyond the power of his own will.
The cairn blew outward, weirdly, slowly and not violently, all the rocks
rolling up atop one another to form walls on either side of the grave; the light
intensified so that Elbryan could see clearly the remains within, rotted and
withered, a hollow shell of the man they had once been.
His staff was up in front of him now, defensively, as if ready for
whatever would come next, but the alert ranger nearly swooned when that corpse
opened its eyes, showing two red dots of light when it sat up suddenly, its back
too stiff and straight, that posture alone showing that it was far from natural.
"Be gone, demon," the ranger whispered ineffectively.
As if some wire were attached to its back, the zombie stood suddenly,
moving straight up without use of its hands, without bending its legs.
Elbryan fell back a step-again came that urge to flee, his mind telling
him that this monster was too great for him -- but he planted Hawkwing firmly
and used it to support his position, holding steady before the undead thing.
"Who are you?" Elbryan demanded. "What manner of creature? Of what weal,
good or evil?"
That last question echoed in Elbryan's mind, sounding ridiculous, for what
manner of goodly force could so torture a body at rest? Still, the ranger' did
not dismiss his knowledge that this was a blessed place, that this body, and the
soul that had inhabited it in life, had been elf-friend, at least.
 The creature's arms came up, reaching straight out toward the ranger, in a
posture that might be threatening or pleading.
But then the undead thing was there, right before him, propelled by
something other than its legs -- was there, barely a foot away, its bony fingers
clasped about the ranger's throat!
Elbryan grabbed at the arm and tried futilely to break the impossibly
strong hold. He tried to yell out in protest, but had no breath. How he wished
that Avelyn were there! That the monk would step in and blast this wicked thing
with the magical stones!
But no, the ranger remembered. The vision was for him alone; this fight
was for him alone. Clearing his panic, Elbryan brought Hawkwing up between the
zombie's arms, grabbed the staff at both ends and twisted it, using its leverage
to break the hold.
For a moment, he thought the twist would break his own neck instead, but
finally, he wriggled free, jumped back a step, and smashed his staff hard
against the side of the creature's head.
He might have hit it with a blow of his breath, he realized, as the
monster didn't flinch in the least, just came on steadily, those straight arms
reaching again for his throat.
Elbryan went into a sidelong dive, meaning to put some distance between
himself and the monster, thinking that. he should string his bow and let fly
some stinging arrows.
But when he came up from the roll, the zombie was there, suddenly,
magically. The ranger got his staff and his arm up to block, but the creature's
backhand sweep was too heavy, sending Elbryan tumbling back the other way.
He came up in a run and ducked low to avoid another blow -- for again, the
zombie had somehow beaten him to the spot -- and scrambled through the thick
pine branches, cutting this way and that, trying to keep away from any
predictable course.
Twice he fumed corners to see the monster waiting for him. One time he
ducked the attack, skidding to his knees but coming right back up agilely to run
on. The second time, the ranger got grabbed painfully by the shoulder but
somehow squirmed free before the monster could crush him in a hug.
Soon Elbryan was at the edge of the grove, standing before the candled
field.
The monster was across the way, off to the side.
Elbryan's jaw slackened at the familiar sight, at the exact image he had
last seen in the minor, except that the zombie now stood where the specter of
his uncle Mather had stood before. All was too quiet, too serene.
"Uncle Mather?" he asked the thing.
Then it was before him, so suddenly, clubbing him with those rock-stiff
arms, sending him tumbling back into the pines.
Elbryan felt warm blood rolling from one ear and had to shake his head
repeatedly to force the dizziness away. The creature, whatever it was, could hit
like a giant!
He turned a corner within a triangle of tight pines, expecting correctly
that the zombie would be there. Up came Hawkwing in a blurring defensive circle,
Elbryan working brilliantly to parry and dodge the deceptively quick strikes of
the stiff-limbed monster, then even countering once, twice, thrice with a deft
stab, a sudden club to the side of the monster's head, and a third stab, this
one nailing the zombie right between the eyes.
The vicious blows seemed not to affect the creature at all.
Across came its clubbing arm, and Elbryan, confused, dove away from the
blow, taking the hit but not hard as he fell. He rolled through several
branches, coming to his feet again in full flight, wondering what he might do
against the likes of this monster, fearing that the dactyl itself had come
against him, had lured him to this spot that he might be destroyed once and for
all.
He crashed through a tangle of branches to find the zombie standing before
him. Not surprised, the ranger continued on, bringing his staff down hard,
right into the creature's face.
It didn't flinch, except to smack Elbryan across the shoulder with one
arm, stealing his forward momentum and launching him sideways instead.
"I have to get a sword," the ranger lamented, glad that the branches had
softened his tumbling fall. Then he was up and running, hoping to put some
distance between himself and the creature, that he might devise some strategy.
He wondered if he should flee the area, into the deeper forest where he was more
at home.
Elbryan dismissed that thought; however futile his efforts seemed, he had
played a part in bringing this creature to the world, and he must see to its
destruction.
He ran on instead through the winding ways of the grove, cutting down
every side path, trying to keep his movements unpredictable so that the monster
could not appear before him. All the while, he was circling in toward the heart
of the grove, moving determinedly toward the ruined cairn.
He came through the last line of trees into the green light. The opened
grave loomed before him, and the zombie monster appeared right behind him! The
creature pounded him hard between the shoulder blades, launching him into a
forward roll that ended abruptly when he crashed against some of the cairn
rocks.
Dazed, bleeding, Elbryan pulled himself up to his elbows, looking over the
edge of the cairn. He knew that he must get up and run, knew that the monster
was stalking in from behind.
The ranger froze in place, staring wide-eyed into the open pit. There,
positioned as if it. were the very heart of the grave, lay a sword -- and not
just any common sword but a work of art, a beautiful, gleaming treasure. If the
tip of its blade was set upon the ground, the end of its balled hilt would not
have reached Elbryan's waist, and the width of the blade was no more than the
distance between the knuckle and first joint of Elbryan's smallest finger, but
there was an unmistakable solidity and strength to the weapon, an aura of power.
The ranger reached in to the limit of his arm, to find that the sword was
just out of range.
He heard the zombie right behind him.
Then, somehow, the sword was in his hand, and Elbryan spun and swept the
weapon in a furious arc. Bluish-white light trailed the length of its path,
stealing the green hue, and the zombie fell back and growled.
Elbryan scrambled to his feet, trying to inspect the blade without losing
sight of his dangerous opponent. The sword was incredibly, light; a blood trough
ran down the center of the blade -- and that blade was forged of silverel, the
ranger suddenly recognized! The crosspiece, which curved back toward the tip of
the blade, was similarly forged of the precious elven metal and tipped in gold;
the hilt was wrapped in blue leather, tied tight by unmistakable silverel
strands. Most wondrous of all, though, was the ball anchoring the hilt, a
balance to the blade, for it, too, was of silverel, but was hollowed and set
with such a gemstone as Elbryan had never seen -- blue and with patches of gray
and white like storm clouds crossing an autumn sky. And there was a power in
that gem, the ranger knew, magic such as the magic of Avelyn's stones.
Elbryan let Hawkwing fall to the ground -- he wondered if he would ever
again need to use the bow as a staff -- and brought the sword out before him,
weaving it slowly, feeling its balance.
He tossed it easily from hand to hand, moving it in the sword-dance, then
thrusting the sword out to keep the zombie at bay, swinging it wide to entice
the monster in.
 But the zombie showed the man new respect and stayed back, growling, the
red dots of light that were its eyes glowing furiously.
"Come on, then," Elbryan said quietly. "You would have me dead, so come
along and play."
The zombie fell back into the branch tangle; Elbryan rushed to follow.
But the creature was gone, out of sight, and the ranger realized that he,
too, had to keep moving, that the fight had become even more a game of cat and
mouse, for this time, both he and the zombie were the cats.
He stayed on the narrow trails mostly, using his speed, hoping to spot the
monster before it was right beside him. He decided to angle his way back to the
candlelit field and was not surprised when he arrived there to find the zombie
waiting for him. The ranger understood then that this was how it was supposed to
be, that this challenge on this field had been predetermined. He stalked toward
the monster, and it came to him slowly at first, then in a furious rush, its
arms flailing wildly.
Elbryan earned and struck, fell back on his heels, tumbled sidelong in a
roll, and came right back in a ferocious charge, that magnificent sword leading.
Now his hit did indeed sting the zombie, the sword tearing a deep gash in the
rotted flesh, smacking hard against a rib.
The zombie came across with a sweeping backhand that caught ducking
Elbryan hard across the shoulder. But the ranger stubbornly held his position
and stood straight, stabbing at the ribs again and then sweeping the blade in an
arc for the monster's neck.
Up came a zombie arm to block; the sword's gemstone flared with sudden
power and the blade crackled with energy, as if it had caught a bolt of white
lightning and held it fast.
The sword severed that blocking arm cleanly, right above the elbow and
slashed across the face of the ducking monster.
Blinded, the zombie fell back and howled in agony, but Elbryan was upon it
in an instant, the mighty sword diving through the monster's chest in a quick
thrust, then coming out and sweeping down diagonally, shearing through the
collarbone, down and across, deep into the rotted chest.
The zombie went hard to the ground and burst apart with a bright green
flash that sent Elbryan stumbling backward, that sent all the world spinning in
the ranger's eyes.
Elbryan awakened sometime later, the eastern sky just brightening with
dawn, his head cradled in his arms atop the bottom stones of the intact cairn.
"Whole again?" he asked skeptically, or perhaps, he realized, it had been
whole all along.
The ranger started to rise but found that every bone in his body ached,
and only then did he realize how cold he was. He put his head back down,
wondering if he would die out here, alone, and cold, wondering what had brought
such a nightmare.
Then a curious thought hit him, and he looked up, truly puzzled, staring
hard at the cairn.
"Uncle Mather?" he asked breathlessly, and he knew that it was true, that
this was the grave of his uncle Mather, the ranger.
But, he wondered, had it all been a dream, then? The monster? The sword?
Too intrigued to feel his pain, the ranger struggled to his feet, and as
he came up above the stones, he saw, on the ground at the head of the cairn, a
familiar, beautiful sword.
Elbryan stiffly reached out his hand and started around to retrieve the
weapon, but the sword came to him, floating to his grasp!
He held it up before his admiring gaze, studying the craftsmanship, the
gleaming silverel, the magnificent gemstone pommel, the blue, the storm clouds.
 "Tempest," he whispered, suddenly realizing the significance of that
unique gemstone. This was Tempest, Mather's sword, one of the six ranger swords
forged by the elves in a time long past.
"Indeed," came a melodic voice from behind and above.
Elbryan spun to see Belli'mar Juraviel sitting calmly on a low branch,
smiling at him.
"Mather's sword," Elbryan said:
"No more," replied Juraviel. "Elbryan's sword, earned in the dark of
night."
The ranger could hardly draw breath.
"My old friend," Elbryan said at length, "all the world has gone mad, I
fear."
Juraviel only nodded, unable to disagree.

CHAPTER 42
Reputation

Winter's icy grip weakened at last, more than three weeks after the vernal
equinox. Snow still fell, but often it turned in mid-storm to a cold rain, and
ground that had been deep with white powder was now slick with gray slush. The
change came as a mixed blessing to Elbryan and his forest band. While their
lives certainly became more comfortable, their nights no longer spent so closely
huddled to a fire that their eyebrows singed, winter's relaxed grip offered the
invading monsters even more mobility. Now goblin, powrie, and fomorian giant
patrols struck deep into the forest, and though these scouts were often
discovered and destroyed by Elbryan's people, the danger to the group increased
daily.
Pony still had not returned from the south. After three weeks, though,
Paulson and his two trapper companions had come back with a fairly thorough
description of the monstrous army's movements. It was as they had feared the
monsters using the occupied towns as base and supply camps while they sent their
dark tendrils further south, first in probes, but soon, so Paulson believed, in
great numbers.
"They'll strike Landsdown within a week, unless we get hit with another
storm," Paulson explained grimly.
"The season's past," Avelyn remarked. "There will be no more storms severe
enough to slow our enemies."
Elbryan agreed; Belli'mar and the other elves -- who remained far in the
shadows about the human camps, hidden from all save the ranger and the centaur
had told him as much.
"Then Landsdown's to fall," said Paulson.
"We must get word to them," Avelyn offered, looking at the ranger, who in
turn looked at Paulson.
"We already felled some farmers," Paulson explained, "and yer girl's been
through with the same news."
Elbryan perked his ears up considerably at that bit of news.
"But will they listen?" Avelyn wanted to know.
"Who's to make them?" asked Paulson.
Elbryan closed his eyes and considered that. Indeed, the men and women of
the frontier towns north of Palmaris could be a stubborn lot! The ranger decided
then that it was time to put Belli'mar's troop to good use. The mobile elves
could get to Landsdown ahead of the monsters, and if the sight of an elf didn't
shake some sense into thick heads, then let the folk of Landsdown get what they
deserved!
"I will see to Landsdown," the ranger promised, and he moved on to other
matters. "What of our own folk?"
 "We've got a hundred not taking well to the life," said Bradwarden. "Tough
enough folic, but we've asked too much o' them."
"Is there any place we might take them?" the ranger asked.
The three trappers were at a loss; Brother Avelyn could think of no
sanctuary closer than St. Precious in Palmaris, but how they could ever get a
hundred people that far south without alerting the monsters was beyond the monk.
Bradwarden's expression told the ranger that the centaur was thinking along the
same lines as he, that the elves and the sanctuary of their hidden home might
prove valuable here. But Elbryan, who had lived long in Andur'Blough Inninness,
didn't think it likely that so many humans, however desperate their situation
might be, would be invited in. Belli'mar Juraviel, easily the friendliest of the
elven band, and the one most acquainted with humans, had even refused to be seen
among the encampments, explaining that his presence would probably only frighten
those too foolish to know friend from foe.
"Then we must make a place for them," the ranger decided, "and keep them
away from our enemies until such time as we may usher them far to the south,
behind the militia lines of Honce-the-Bear's Kingsmen." He looked at Paulson,
Cric, and Chipmunk. "See to it," he bade them, and they nodded.
Good solders, Elbryan mused.
The next week moved along uneventfully. Elbryan, Bradwarden, and Avelyn
came upon a group of a dozen goblins chopping firewood, and summarily destroyed
them. When a fomorian came rushing to the goblins' rescue, Bradwarden tripped
the giant, and the first thing it saw when it looked up -- and the last thing it
ever saw -- was the fierce ranger glaring down at it, powerful Tempest sweeping
down.
Elbryan had little contact with the elves that week. He had met with
Juraviel soon after his fireside discussion with his more conventional
commanders, and the elf had reluctantly agreed to send a handful of his fellows
south to warn Landsdown.
"I fear that we are being dragged into the middle of a fight that is meant
for humans," Juraviel had groaned, to which" Elbryan only lightly responded, "Of
your own accord."
At the end of the week, Juraviel and Tuntun came to the ranger with
welcome news indeed. "The folk of Landsdown are on the road south ahead of the
advancing monsters," Juraviel explained. "Every one."
"And they are being met and ushered more swiftly by soldiers of your
king," added Tuntun.
"My thanks to you and yours," the ranger said solemnly with a low bow.
"Not to us" -- Tuntun laughed -- "for the folk were on the road before we
ever arrived."
Elbryan's expression turned quizzical.
"Your thanks to her," explained Juraviel, and on cue, Pony stepped out of
the shadows of a thick spruce.
Elbryan rushed to her, embracing her in a huge hug. It took him some time
to realize that the elves had announced her, and thus, that the elves had met
her! He looked from Pony back to Juraviel and Tuntun.
"You had already told her of us," Juraviel said dryly.
"But I believe our appearance shocked her anyway," added Tuntun, again, in
better spirits than was normal for the surly elf.
"I was still in Landsdown, the last one there, when they came upon me,"
Pony explained.
Elbryan looked her over carefully, satisfied that she, was not injured,
only muddy and weary from so long a ride.
"All the way to Palmaris," she answered his unspoken question. "No horse
will ever match the run of Symphony! He took me all the way to Palmaris without
complaint, and all the way back at equal speed. The kingdom is alerted now, the
soldiers are on the road, and our enemies will win no more victories by
surprise."
Elbryan lifted his hand to brush back a stray lock of the woman's thick,
dirty hair. He turned his fingers gently to flick a speck of mud from her cheek,
though his gaze never left her shining blue eyes. How much he loved her, admired
her, respected her! He wanted to crush her to him, to make love to her forever,
and to protect her -- and that was his dilemma, for if he tried to protect this
marvelous woman, Jilseponie Ault, then he would surely be stealing the very
essence of her, the will and the strength that he so loved.
"All the world should thank you," he whispered. He turned to make a remark
to the elves, but the pair, so wise in the ways of all the world, were long
gone, granting the lovers their privacy.

"They knew we were out here, in great numbers, and now they wonder why the
signs have lessened," Elbryan explained to Avelyn, the ranger astride his horse,
beside the standing man just inside the cover of thick trees lining a bowl-
shaped field. A blanket of slushy snow still covered the field, shining blue-
white in the pale light of a bright half moon. Diagonally, across the field to
the northwest, moving through the stark lines of thinner trees, came three
forms, obviously goblin scouts.
"Perhaps they will believe that we have all departed," Avelyn offered
hopefully. Indeed, more than two thirds of the human group had gone further to
the east, leaving less than forty warriors at Elbryan's disposal, not counting
the secretive elves, whose number even the ranger didn't know.
"That would be their mistake," the ranger answered grimly.
The tone of his voice made Avelyn glance his way, and the monk was glad to
see that Tempest was still sheathed at the side of the saddle Belster O'Comely
had commissioned for Elbryan before the coming of the monsters, and that
Hawkwing was likewise in place, on a holder that looped the bow about a quiver
of arrows.
But then, to Avelyn's surprise, Elbryan stepped Symphony out of the
shadows onto the mild southern slope of the bowl-shaped vale, out of cover.
Across the way, perhaps a hundred yards, the goblins stopped and stared,
then scrambled among the trees, fitting arrows to bowstrings.
"Elbryan!" Avelyn whispered harshly. "Come back!"
The ranger sat quietly, cutting a regal figure, his bow and sword at rest.
Three arrows went up into the night sky, errant shots that landed far
short or far wide of the ranger.
"They do riot even believe that we can see them," Elbryan said quietly,
obviously amused.
Avelyn scrambled out to Elbryan's side, putting Symphony between him and
the goblins. "Better that we had not seen them," the monk huffed, "or better
still that they had not seen us!"
"Calm, my friend," the ranger replied as another arrow thudded into the
snowy ground, barely twenty feet away. Brave Symphony held perfectly steady;
Elbryan wished that his human friend had as much faith.
Avelyn peeked under Symphony's head, to see that the goblins had gone to
the bottom of the field's slope, still under the respectable cover of the stark
deciduous trees.
"Three shots at a time, and they're likely to get lucky," Avelyn remarked.
The monk looked up to see Elbryan slowly bringing Hawkwing to bear, then, with
hardly a movement;. letting fly an arrow.
Avelyn looked back in time to see a goblin catch it in his chest. He
couldn't see the arrow, of course, just the sudden jerk of the dark silhouette,
followed-by a backward drop to the ground. The other two scrambled in sudden
retreat, slipping as they tried to get back up the slope.
Elbryan held his pose, his bowstring fully drawn and perfectly steady.
 "Get them quick," Avelyn prodded.
"It must be sure," Elbryan answered. "There can be no miss." He waited as
the goblin pair weaved, then at last found his opening and let fly, the arrow
cutting a straight, swift line to take a second goblin in the side of the head.
The one remaining howled and scrambled, fell to its belly, and slid halfway back
to the bottom.
"Oh, get him!" cheered Avelyn. "Ho, ho, what!"
But Elbryan had put up his bow, sitting calmly on Symphony, his' head
tilted back, his eyes closed, as if he were simply enjoying the breeze of the
moonlit night.
"What?" Avelyn asked, the monk watching the goblin running off once again
to the top of the ridge and then beyond, lost from view. "Ho, ho, what?"
Elbryan slowly opened his eyes and looked down at the man. "It is all
about reputation," the ranger explained, and he turned Symphony and started
walking back to the trees.
"Reputation?" Avelyn echoed. "You let the last one get away! It will
surely report that we have not left, that we, that you, at least, remain. . ."
The monk's voice trailed off and a smile spread across his round face. Of
course, the terrified goblin would return, blabbering its report. Of course, the
goblin would tell them that the mysterious ranger on his mighty stallion
remained, would tell them that death waited for them in the forest.
"Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn bellowed in sincere admiration. "Let them know of
Elbryan, then!"
"No," the ranger corrected. "Let them know of Nightbird. Let them know and
let them be afraid."
Avelyn nodded as he watched the ranger and his mount melt away into the
forest night. Indeed, he thought, and well they should be afraid!

Elbryan did his sword-dance, as he had done so many times in Andur'Blough

Inninness. Tempest weaved its wondrous lines about him slowly-turning, stooping,
and rising in perfect balance. One foot followed the other and then took up the
lead: step, step, thrust, and retreat.
All flowed slowly, beautifully. He was the embodiment of the warrior, this
muscular naked man, the height of harmony, one with his weapon.
From the trees behind Elbryan, Pony and Avelyn watched awestruck. They had
come upon the scene quite accidentally, and the monk, seeing Elbryan first and
seeing that he was quite naked, had tried to turn Pony down a different path.
But she, too, had spotted the man, and no amount of coercing from Avelyn would
deflect her.
In watching Elbryan, his graceful moves, his trancelike intensity, Pony
came to know so much more of him, to see him as clearly as if she were lying in
his arms, sharing his heights of passion and joy.
This was different but no less intense, she realized. Like their coupling,
this was a joining of body and spirit, a physical meditation somehow above the
norm of human experience, somehow sacred.
Avelyn had seen this type of practice before -- it was not so different
from the physical training the monks received at St.-Mere-Abelle -- but he had
never seen a dance as graceful as Elbryan's, as perfectly harmonious.
And Tempest, seeming no more than an extension of the ranger, only added
to that beauty, the light sword swishing about, leaving a glowing trail of
bluish-white.
"We should be away," the monk whispered to Pony as Elbryan came to one
long pause in his routine.
Pony didn't disagree; perhaps they were indeed peeping at something which
was Elbryan's alone. But as the ranger started his movements again, as Tempest
came up and about, perfectly level and parallel with his broad shoulders, she
found that she could not turn away.
 Nor could Avelyn.
Elbryan finished soon after and slumped to the grass; Pony and Avelyn
stole away.
When Pony met Elbryan more than an hour later, she had to work hard to
hide her feelings of guilt, her feelings that she had somehow violated him.
Finally, it was too much.
"I saw you this morning," she admitted.
Elbryan raised an eyebrow.
"At your exercise," Pony admitted. "I -- I did not mean..." She stopped,
stammering, and lowered her gaze.
"And were you alone?" said Elbryan.
Something in his tone brought Pony's gaze up to meet his, and in the hint
of a smile at the corner of his mouth, the woman found the truth revealed.
"You already knew!" she accused.
Elbryan brought a hand to his chest, as if wounded.
"You knew!" Pony said again, and she slapped her hand against his
shoulder.
"But I did not know if you would tell me," the ranger said evenly, and
Pony backed away.
"We came upon you by accident," the woman explained.
Pony glared at him.
"Yes, you and Avelyn," Elbryan revealed.
After a long pause, Pony asked bluntly, "Are you angry?"
Elbryan smiled warmly. "There is nothing I wish to hold secret from you."
"But I remained," she went on, "I watched you until the end of your dance."
"I would have been disappointed if the sight of me so could not hold you
in place," Elbryan said playfully, and all tension was abruptly gone.
Pony wrapped the man in a hug then, and gave him a deep kiss. "Will you
teach it to me?" she asked. "The dance, I mean."
Elbryan looked hard into her face. "It was a gift to me from the
Touel'alfar," he explained. "A gift that I will, in turn, offer to you, but only
with the blessings of the elves."
Pony was honored, and she moved to kiss Elbryan again, but a rustle at the
side caught her attention.
Paulson moved out of the brush. "The caravan must've traveled half the
night," he said, referring to a goblin supply train they had been watching,
coming from the north. "We hit it today, or it makes Weedy Meadow."
"Are they still along the river?" asked Elbryan.
The big man nodded.
Elbryan looked at Pony, who understood her role; and without further
bidding, she ran off to find Avelyn and gather together those warriors who had
been put under her charge.
Elbryan closed his eyes and sent his thoughts into the forest, to Symphony
-- the stallion grazing, as always these days, not so far away.
"Let us be off," the ranger then said to Paulson, "to prepare the
battlefield as best suits us."
There was no high ground in the path of the caravan, except those hills
surrounding Weedy Meadow, and that locale would be too close to the occupied
village. Elbryan and his forces had to go out further to the north, had to
intercept and destroy the caravan before any aid could come from the monsters
already encamped in the area.
But there was no high ground, just thick woodlands, giving way to the
brown and gray stones that lined the riverbank. At least the river would form a
barrier to their enemies, the ranger thought, preventing an easy escape.
"Two groups coming," Bradwarden explained, catching up to Elbryan and the
others as they determined their attack routes. "Small one in front, goblins
mostly, but with a giant helping, cutting the trees and clearing the way."
 "For wagons?" Elbryan asked, and he hoped that he was right.
"War engines," the centaur explained. "Two big contraptions, catapults,
all set on wheels and pulled by three giants each."
"Too many," muttered Paulson, standing at Elbryan's side.
The ranger looked at the man, no coward certainly, and wasn't sure that he
could disagree. Seven giants -- at least -- and a host of powries and goblins
might indeed be more than the ranger and his band could handle.
"Well, we can hit at them anyway," Paulson offered a moment later. "But we
best be ready to run off if the tide turns against us."
Elbryan looked at Bradwarden. "What of scouts?" he asked.
"Oh, they've plenty o' goblin rats running about the trees," the centaur
replied, smiling widely as he lifted a twig to pick his teeth. "Two less, now,"
he said mischievously.
The ranger made a subtle movement, one that only Bradwarden caught,
putting his finger up beside his ear, indicating a pointy ear, thus an elf.
The centaur nodded; the elves were in the area, and Elbryan was confident
that he and his band would not have to worry much about any goblin scouts.
Pony came riding in then on a roan mare, one of several wild horses that
would allow themselves to be ridden. Brother Avelyn came huffing and puffing
behind her, the monk trotting along without complaint.
"The most important task before us is the destruction of the war engines,"
Elbryan decided. "For surely they will be put to deadly use against the towns to
the south, even against the high walls of Palmaris."
The ranger paused for a while and considered all that he had heard. "How
many in the front group?" he asked the centaur.
"Ah, a motley bunch," Bradwarden replied sourly, as if even speaking of
the creatures left a foul taste in his mouth. "A dozen, I'd say, hacking at the
trees, tearing at them, while the giant clears what's fallen. Ugly wretches.
I'll kill the lot of them, if ye want."
Elbryan almost believed that the centaur would do just that. "Can you
handle a giant?" he asked.
Bradwarden snorted as if the very question were insulting.
The ranger turned to Pony. "Take ten and the centaur," he explained. "You
must destroy that front group and quickly. The rest will come in with me to cut
off the main caravan, right in between the groups."
"Facing six giants?" Paulson asked skeptically.
"Drawing their attention," the ranger explained, "long enough for Avelyn
to burn the powrie catapults. After that, we can scatter as we must, but my hope
is that many monsters will be dead in the wreckage."
"But they have scouts," Paulson argued. "They might be knowing we're about
afore e'er we get near them."
"The scouts are all dead," Elbryan said firmly. Paulson, and many others,
looked at him hard.
"Yer elfin friends?" the big man asked. "I'm not sure I'm liking that."
"Tell me that after the battle," Elbryan replied wryly, then to Pony he
shouted, "Be off!"
Paulson sighed, accepting the ranger's word for it. He was surprised when
Pony tapped him on the shoulder, indicating that she wanted him and Cric and
Chipmunk to work with her group up front.
"We will come straight in. at them along the riverbank," Pony explained to
Elbryan as she and the others moved away.
"And we hit from the side, through the trees," the ranger replied. He
nodded at his beloved. He could feel that tingling excitement, prebattle, and he
knew Pony felt it, too. Indeed, there was danger for him and for Pony, but this
was their life, this was their destiny, and for all the' horror and all the
fear, it was exciting.
 Elbryan had to grit his teeth and let the front group of monsters move
past his position, though with every hack of a goblin axe against one of the
beautiful trees, the ranger wanted to rush out and cut the creature down.
The goblins and their giant escort moved along slowly but steadily, and
soon after, Elbryan and his companions heard the rumble of the war engines, the
grunts of the towing giants.
"Hold until they are right upon us," the ranger instructed, "then let fly
your arrows and loose your spears. Aim for the giants only," the ranger quickly
added. "They are the most dangerous. If we can bring a couple of them down with
the first volley, our enemies will be at a sore disadvantage."
"And if we don't?" surly Tol Yuganick grumbled. "Are we to run in front of
six giants to be squashed?"
"We hit at them as hard as we safely can," the ranger replied evenly,
trying to keep his continuing frustration with the disagreeable man out of his
voice, "and then, when we must, we flee. A single caravan is not worth risking
many casualties."
"Easy for you," Tol snapped back, "up on that fast horse of yours. The
rest of us are running, and I'm not thinking that many can outrun the likes of a
giant!"
Elbryan glared at the man, wishing that Pony had taken him with her group,
or even that Tol had been sent off to the east with the other refugees. Tol was
a fierce fighter, but the amount of discord he caused made him a detraction, not
an asset.
"Wait until they close," the ranger said again, addressing the whole
group. "They think that they have scouts in place, and will be caught unawares.
Concentrate your missiles on the giants pulling the front catapult. Let us see
what remains after the first volley."
He turned to Avelyn then. "How many will you need with you?"
The monk shook his head. "None," he replied. "Just keep their attention
ahead of them, and I will get in behind! Stay back from the catapults, I warn
you. I am feeling quite powerful this day!"
With that, the monk scrambled off into the brush, and Elbryan nearly
laughed aloud watching him go, watching the light step that had come over
Brother Avelyn Desbris. The monk had found peace within himself, ironically, in
the midst of a war, a battle that Avelyn knew justified the actions that had
weighed so heavily on him these last years.
Elbryan turned his attention back to the scene before him, ten yards of
trees, followed by a few yards of cleared brush, a dozen feet of river stones,
and then the river itself, waters rushing fast with the beginning of the spring
melt. He heard the rumble of the war engines above that watery voice and
discerned, by the alternating sounds, both sharp and muffled, that the caravan
was moving right along the edge of the riverbank.
The ranger motioned to his companions, who started slinking from tree to
tree, setting up their shots. Elbryan held his place, behind the tangled
branches of two close hemlocks. He glanced about for the elves, and hoped that
they were nearby. None in all the world could better concentrate their shots,
and even a giant, the ranger knew from personal experience, could be brought
down by the small arrows.
Up in front, one of the women signaled that the caravan was nearly upon
them.
Elbryan fitted an arrow to Hawkwing and eyed his course. He contacted
Symphony telepathically, and the horse nickered softly.
The first of the giants came into sight, bending low, pulling hard, a
heavy harness strapped across its torso. Two others were close behind, in
similar posture. "'
Elbryan felt the anxious gazes of his companions upon him, waiting for him
to start it all. He was somewhat concerned that no sounds of battle came to him
from further south, from the lead group, but he and his companions were
committed, he knew, and would have to trust that Pony would not let the goblins
and giant get behind them, cutting off any quick retreat.
The ranger let fly his first arrow even as he kicked his heels against
Symphony's ribs and the horse leaped forward.
The lead giant grunted, more in surprise than in pain, when the bolt dove
into tiffs shoulder, and then all the air about the monster and its two
companions erupted as a dozen arrows and nearly that many spears came slicing
in.
Elbryan fired again and again, scoring a hit each time as Symphony guided
him to the open ground before the caravan. By the time he got there, the lead
giant was down and dead, the other two were scrambling to get out of their
encumbering harnesses, while a score of powries and twice that number of goblins
were hooting and rushing about, grabbing for weapons or diving for cover.
Out came several of Elbryan's companions, right behind him, and all of
them, and the ranger too, breathed a sigh of relief to finally hear the sound of
battle behind them.
One of the powries stood tall on the first catapult, barking out commands.
The ranger's next shot laid the dwarf low.

Pony charged in hard, running her horse right across the lead line of
goblins, her sword slashing hard across the face of one, then darting out to
stick a second in the throat. This was the easy part, she knew, for she and her
companions had caught the monsters by surprise, and diminutive goblins couldn't
take a solid hit. Before the woman had even swung her sword, half the small
creatures lay dead or squirming in agony on the ground.
But then there was the not so little matter of a fomorian giant.
Pony tugged hard on her mare's mane, turning the horse when she saw the
behemoth moving to intercept. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the
galloping charge of Bradwarden, the centaur singing at the top of his
considerable voice, waving a huge cudgel as easily as if it were a tiny baton.
The giant braced as the centaur came in, but Bradwarden skidded short and
leaped about, putting his tall closest to the monster. Thinking that the centaur
had changed his mind and was trying to flee, the giant lunged for that tail, but
Bradwarden's haunches came up high, the centaur kicking out with both his hind
legs, hard hooves perfectly aligned with the stooping monster's ugly face.
The giant staggered backward, its legs buckling under it.
Singing wildly, the centaur charged in, bashing the monster about the head
with his heavy club.
Then Pony rushed by, her sword slashing a line across the side of the
giant's neck.
"Hey, but ye're stealing me fun!" the centaur protested, leaping about
again and snapping off a second mighty double kick, this one connecting on the
giant's massive chest and throwing the monster flat to the ground.
Bradwarden smiled, seeing Pony run down another goblin, seeing all the
wretched creatures falling fast before the deadly group. And seeing, most of
all, the giant, dazed and helpless, up on its elbows, its head lolling about.
Perfect height for an underhand swing.

The second giant went down before it ever got out of the harness. The
third did get out, but Elbryan put an arrow into its eye, and half a dozen other
arrows hit it in the neck and face.
It, too, slumped to the ground.
Of mote concern, though, were the powries, taking up their weapons, and
the giants from the second catapult, out of their harnesses and with hardly a
scratch on them.
"Hurry, Avelyn," Elbryan muttered under his breath. "Do not delay."
 "Here comes Jilly! Flying fast!" one man cried, and Elbryan was truly glad
for the timing and for the much-needed boost to his group's tentative morale.
The monstrous troop in the south had been overrun, so it seemed.
"Concentrate your shots on the giants!" the ranger bellowed, and then
under his voice, he repeated, "Hurry, Avelyn."
* * *
Bradwarden galloped off to catch the woman and her fast-flying roan, but the
centaur skidded to a stop, seeing Chipmunk teasing free a pair of daggers from a
dead goblin, but with tears streaming down his face.
"It's Cric!" the man wailed. "Oh, my Cric!"
Bradwarden followed his gaze to a tumble of a pair of goblins and,
unmistakably, a bald-headed human lying among them.
"He's dead!" the small nervous man declared.
"Where is yer third?" the centaur asked. "The big one?"
"Paulson's running up ahead," Chipmunk explained. "Says he'll kill every
goblin, every powrie, every giant."
"Get on me back, man, and hurry!" the centaur ordered, and Chipmunk did
just that. On they charged, Bradwarden singing a rousing song and Chipmunk
forcing away his tears, locking them behind a wall of sheer anger.

Avelyn crouched behind a tree, barely ten feet from the side of the trailing
catapult. The monk's frustration mounted, for though two of the giants had run
off toward the fighting up front, the third had remained defensively in place,
with a host of powries staying up on the catapult, some of them with crossbows.
Avelyn would have to get closer, he knew, for his fireball to have any
real effect, but if he went out in the open, he figured that he would be grabbed
or shot down before he ever loosed the magical blast.
The monk understood the situation up front, understood that Elbryan could
not buy him very much more time without endangering many lives. He called up his
serpentine shield and, purely on instinct, he rushed out of the brush and dove
to the ground, rolling right under the catapult.
He heard the. powries crying out, knew that he hadn't much time, and tried
to focus on the ruby, on its mounting energy.
Then the giant was kneeling beside the catapult, its face down to the
ground, its long arm reaching under for poor Avelyn.
He had to roll away, but then, stopped suddenly as a small crossbow bolt
skipped off the ground right beside him. He glanced back to see a pair of
powries crawling under the war engine, coming for him with prodding spears.
Avelyn closed his eyes and prayed with all his heart. He felt the tingling
power of the ruby, as if it were begging for release; he imagined the sudden
stabbing pain when the powries drew near.
Avelyn's eyes popped open, the man staring into the ugly face of the
giant.
"Ho, ho, what!" the monk howled in glee, and boom! a ball of flame
engulfed the catapult, incinerated the powries crawling in behind the monk, and
blinded the giant in front of him. The great wooden structure went up like a
huge candle; those unsuspecting powries standing atop it cried out and dove for
the ground, rolling to extinguish the flames. One unfortunate dwarf dove right
in the path of the howling giant. The fire on that particular dwarf was indeed
extinguished as a huge booted foot crushed the diminutive creature flat. The
burning giant continued on with hardly a thought for the dwarf, running blindly,
swatting futilely at the flames. It slammed into a young tree, snapping branches
and stumbling, but held its balance -- stupidly, for the ground offered its only
chance of smothering the flames -- and ran on.
Avelyn clutched the serpentine tightly as burning chips of wood sizzled
down around him. The gem wouldn't protect him from smoke, he knew, and so he
realized he had to get out from under the burning war engine. He started to work
himself to one side, but then a wheel succumbed to the flames and the gigantic
catapult creaked and rocked to the side, pinning the monk.
"Oh, help me," Avelyn breathed, trying to squeeze back the other way. "Ho,
ho, what?"

Avelyn's blast did much to even the odds, leaving only two giants and a
score of powries against Elbryan's thirty. The ranger could not accept such an
even fight, though, for if he lost a fifth of his force, it would be too many
for the gains of this one encounter. He started to call for a retreat, holding
Pony back as she galloped up beside him on her strong roan, but then Bradwarden
came by, singing again, a rowdy tune, with a growling Chipmunk on his back,
daggers in hand.
"Halt!" Elbryan called to the centaur, but even as he spoke there came a
sudden humming sound, a noise the ranger recognized as the thrumming of many
delicate but deadly elvish bows.
Several powries tumbled from the lead catapult.
Bradwarden bore down on the closest giant, Chipmunk leading the way with a
hurled dagger, then a second, third, and fourth in rapid succession, all aimed
perfectly for the behemoth's face, all hitting the mark and digging in deeply
with the strength of the man's rage driving them.
The giant howled in agony and clutched at its torn face with both hands,
and Bradwarden hit it in full stride, bowling it to the ground.
Elbryan could not halt the flow of his furious forces then, certainly not
wild-eyed Paulson, who dodged the thrust of a powrie spear, lifted the dwarf
into the air, and tossed it a dozen feet, to crack its head against a tree
trunk.
The remaining giant ran away into the woods; those powries out of the
immediate rush scattered, wanting no more of this wild band.
"Take apart the second catapult!" Elbryan commanded his forces. "Feed its
logs to Avelyn's fire."
"Where is Avelyn?" Pony asked as her roan trotted past Symphony.
"In the forest with the elves, likely," said Elbryan. "Perhaps in pursuit
of the giant."
As if on cue, the burning catapult creaked again and slanted over farther.
Elbryan stared at it, sensed something amiss.
"No," the ranger murmured, slipping down from his horse. He started
walking toward the burning thing, then began running, scrambling to the ground
as close as he could get to the catapult's highest edge. Elbryan peered through
the thick smoke. There were two bodies near him, and he was relieved to
recognize them as powries.
"But what were the powries doing under the catapult?" the ranger asked
with sudden horror.
"Bring a beam!" he shouted, standing tall and hopping excitedly. "A lever!
And quickly!"
"Avelyn," Pony breathed, catching on to the source of her lover's
distress.
Most of the fighting was finished -- several men and the centaur had
already begun taking apart the intact catapult. Bradwarden, working at the
catapult's long arm and great counterweight, heard the ranger's desperate call.
Chipmunk popped out the last fastening peg, and, with the strength of a
giant, the centaur lifted free the huge beam. Men scrambled to help him, but
even with all of the hands, the best they could do was drag the beam to Elbryan
and the burning catapult.
"Ropes to the other side," Elbryan commanded, as he and several others
began setting one end of the long pole under the highest side of the burning
catapult. "It must be pulled right over, and swiftly!"
 They tugged, they lifted with all their strength. Pony got Symphony and
her roan around the back, ropes looped about the war engine and tied to the
tugging horses. Finally, with one great heave, the group uprighted the catapult,
which fell over with a tremendous groan of protest and a huge shower of orange-
yellow sparks.
There lay Avelyn, motionless and soot covered.
Elbryan rushed to him, as did all the others, Pony pushing her way through
to be beside this man she had come to love as a brother.
"He does not breathe!" Elbryan cried, pushing hard on the man's chest,
trying to force the air into him.
Pony took a different tack, going for the monk's pouch, fumbling with the
stones until she at last brought forth the hematite. She had no idea how to
proceed -- Avelyn had not formally trained her with this most dangerous of
stones -- but she knew that she must try. She sent her thoughts into the stone,
remembered that Avelyn had done as much for her, and indeed, for Elbryan.
She prayed to God, she begged for help, and then, though she did not
believe that she had accessed the stone's power in the least, she felt a
soothing hand above her own, and looked down to see the monk staring up at her,
smiling faintly.
"Hot one," Avelyn said between coughs that brought forth black spittle.
"Ho, ho, what!"

"'The design was impressive," Elbryan admitted to Belli'mar Juraviel and

Tuntun, the elves sitting with the ranger at Avelyn's bedside much later that
night.
Avelyn opened a sleepy eye to regard his newest companions. He had known
the elves were about, of course -- everyone in the camp did -- but he had never
actually seen one of the Touel'alfar before. He stayed quiet and closed his eyes
once more, not wanting to scare the sprites away.
Too late; Elbryan had noticed the movement.
"I fear that your prophecies of doom hold much truth," the ranger said,
shaking Avelyn a bit to show that he was speaking to him.
Avelyn opened one eye, locked stares not with Elbryan but with the elven
pair.
"I give you Belli'mar Juraviel and Tuntun," the ranger said politely, "two
of my tutors, two of my dearest friends."
Avelyn opened wide his eyes. "Well met, what," he said boisterously,
though he wound up coughing again, not yet ready for such exertion.
"And to you, good friar," said Juraviel. "Your power with the stones is
encouraging."
"And great will that power need to be," added Tuntun. "For a darkness has
come to the world."
Avelyn knew that all too well, had known it since the days immediately
after his departure from St.-Mere-Abelle -- had known it, in retrospect, since
his journey to Pimaninicuit. He closed his eyes again and lay still, too weary
to speak of such things.
"We know beyond doubt that these monsters are not simple raiders but a
cohesive and organized force," Elbryan stated.
"They are guided," Tuntun agreed, "and held together."
"We need to speak of this another time," said Juraviel, indicating the
monk, who seemed as if he had drifted off to sleep once more. "For now, we have
the immediate battles before us."
Both elves nodded and slipped quietly out of the tent, past the sleeping
soldiers and the alert guards without a whisper, seeming to all about as no more
than windblown leaves or the shadow of a bird.
Elbryan sat with Avelyn for the rest of the night, but the monk did not
stir. He was deep in thought, in sleep at times, recalling all that he had heard
of the darkness that was on the land, of the demon dactyl and the blackness
within men's hearts.

"Our master will not be pleased," Gothra the goblin whined, the one-handed
creature hopping frantically about the small room.
Ulg Tik'narn regarded his fellow general sourly. The powrie had little
love of goblins and found Gothra a pitiful whining creature. The powrie could
not deny Gothra's statement, though, and gave the goblin more credit than he
gave Maiyer Dek, for the giant was perfectly oblivious of their increasingly
desperate situation. The villages had been captured, that was true, but too few
humans had been killed, and this mysterious Nightbird and his friends were
wreaking havoc on every supply group that came down from the north, something
the merciless dactyl had certainly noticed -- the arrival of the spirit who
called himself Brother Justice confirmed that fact.
And Ulg Tik'narn knew that he, most of all, would be blamed for the
interfering humans. But the powrie was not without allies of its own, and was
not without a plan.

CHAPTER 43
A Place of Particular Interest

"Tearing and scarring!" the centaur wailed, stomping about, splashing in the mud
and puddles and smashing his heavy club against the ground. A drenching rain
fell all about the region, turning the last of the snow to slush and softening
the ground.
"They are cutting the evergreens in the vale north of Dundalis," Elbryan
explained grimly to Pony. "All of them."
"Then the day is all the grayer," she replied, looking in the general
direction of what had once been her home. Of alb the places in the area, only
Elbryan's private grove was more beautiful than the pine vale and the caribou
moss, and none elicited more wistful memories from the young woman.
"We can stop them," the ranger said suddenly, seeing the profound pain on
Pony's fair features. He sighed as he finished, though, for he and Bradwarden
had just concluded a similar conversation in which the centaur had called for an
attack, but Elbryan had reasoned that the clear-cutting might be no more than a
trap set for their band. They had become a large thorn in the side of the
invading army, and no doubt the monstrous leaders in Dundalis and the other
villages wanted to get the secretive band out in the open and deal with them
once and for all. Goblins were stupid things, but powries were not, Elbryan
knew, and he understood that these dwarvish generals would recognize the
importance of beauty to the humans.
"Too close to Dundalis," Pony lamented. "They would have reinforcements
upon us before we could do any real harm to their clear-cutters."
"But if we sting them and send them running," Bradwarden argued again,
"might that they'll be thinking twice before going back in that valley!"
Pony looked at Elbryan, the Nightbird. This was his game, his force to
command. "I would like to hit at them," she said quietly, "if for no other
reason than to show my respect for the land they despoil."
Elbryan nodded grimly. "What of Avelyn?"
"He is in no state to entertain thoughts of battle," Pony replied with a
shake of her head, the movement spraying little droplets of water from her
thick, soaked hair. "And he is busy with his gemstones, looking far, so he
said."
Elbryan had to be satisfied with that; any work Avelyn was doing was
likely vital, for the monk was at least as dedicated as Elbryan himself, or any
of the others out here. "Symphony can bring us only a handful of horses," the
ranger stated, improvising, thinking out loud. "We'll take only as many as can
ride, and only volunteers."
"My roan will bear me," said Pony.
"I ride when I'm walking." The centaur laughed.
Elbryan replied with a smile, then fell within his thoughts, calling out
through the rain and the trees to Symphony, the black stallion not so far away.
Within the hour, seven riders, Paulson and Chipmunk among them -- both still
fuming over the loss of Cric -- and Bradwarden beside them, set out through the
forest, making their winding way toward the evergreen valley. The elves were
with them, as well, Elbryan knew, shadowing their every move, serving as silent
scouts.
They arrived at the northern slope of the valley without incident, to look
down upon a score of powries, a like number of goblins, and a pair of giants,
clearing away the trees. This was one of the few times of the year when the
ground in the vale was brown, for the caribou moss wasn't in season and the snow
was all but gone. Still, the sight of the low, neat evergreens was impressive, a
reminder to the ranger and Pony of the beauty of this place, this valley that
they had so treasured in their youth.
"We stay close, we hit fast, and we get away," Elbryan explained;
addressing them all but eyeing Paulson directly. The big man, so pained by the
loss of his friend, was likely to ride right out the other end of the valley,
the ranger realized, and charge into Dundalis, killing everything in his pates.
"Our mission here is not to kill them all -- we've not the numbers for such a
task -- but to scare them and sting them, to chase them away in the hope that
they will fear to leave the shelter of the village."
Pony, Paulson, and Chipmunk went with Elbryan, moving down to the left,
while the other three followed Bradwarden down to the right. The rain
intensified then, as did the wind, sheets of water blowing past, making them and
their mounts all thoroughly miserable. But Elbryan welcomed the deluge. The
monsters were as miserable as they, he knew, and the noise of the storm would
cover their approach, perhaps even their first attacks. The one drawback was
that the elves, even then moving into position lower on the slope, would have a
difficult time with their bows.
No matter, the ranger mused as he picked his way among the low pines, wide
of the area where the monsters hacked away. Today was a day for swords, then,
and Elbryan felt comfortable indeed drawing Tempest and laying the magnificent
sword across his lap.
The blade came up swiftly as the ranger passed around one bushy spruce, to
see the branches jostled by something within.
Belli'mar Juraviel popped his head out in plain view; Elbryan heard
Paulson and Chipmunk suck in their breath behind him, their first real sight of
the ever-elusive elves.
"They are behind the ridge in great numbers," Juraviel said to the ranger.
"Many giants among them, and those with stones for throwing! Be gone from this
place, oh, be gone!"
Before Elbryan could begin to respond, the elf disappeared within the
thick boughs, and then a rustle across the way told Elbryan that Juraviel had
exited the back side of the tree and was probably long gone already.
"Trap," the ranger whispered harshly to his three companions, and he
kicked Symphony into a run. The four widened their line, weaving about the
trees, coming suddenly upon a group of powries and goblins, the monsters too
startled to react.
Elbryan leaned low in the saddle and slashed one across the face, then
drove Tempest into the chest of another as Symphony thundered past. Chipmunk
took one in the eye with a dagger and cut the ear off another as it tried to
dive aside, while Pony scattered a trio of goblins, the whining creatures more
than willing to run away.
 Paulson's maneuvers were more direct, the bearish man running down one
powrie, trampling it under his mount, then splitting the skull of another with
his heavy axe. Roaring and charging, looking for another target, the big man
guided his horse out to the side of the others, cut a close circuit of one tree,
and ran smack into a fomorian giant, the horse and rider bouncing more than the
behemoth.
Paulson fell from his mount into the mud and looked up to see the giant, a
bit dazed but far from defeated, shove his horse aside, then take up its
monstrous, spiked club.
He knew that he would soon be with poor Cric.

He was weak and sore, but he could wait no longer. Brother Avelyn
understood that he and his friends, that all the world, needed answers, needed
to know the exact cause of this invasion. And so he fell into the enchantment of
his powerful hematite, let his spirit walk free of his battered body, and then
let it fly upon the winds.
He looked to the south, to Dundalis and the fight in the vale. He saw the
monsters readied on the hill, beginning their charge, organized as an army and
not a simple collection of marauding tribes.
Avelyn could do nothing except pray that Elbryan and his riders were swift
enough and lucky enough to get away.
The monk's thoughts turned him back to the north, and there he went with
all speed. Soon he was far beyond the sounds of battle, the forest rushing past
beneath his floating spirit. How free he felt, as he had on that long-ago day --
that day a million years ago in another life, it seemed -- when Master Jojonah
had first let him walk outside of his corporeal form, when he had floated above
St.-Mere-Abelle to set the carvings on the monastery roof.
Yet another caravan of monsters, laden with engines of war and moving
inexorably south, washed those peaceful thoughts from Avelyn's mind.
He came past the storm, out of the rain, but though the sky was brighter,
the scene before the monk, the towering outline of the Barbacan, was not. Avelyn
felt the evil, feared the evil, and knew suddenly that if he went in that dark
place now, he would not get out.
Still; his spirit moved toward the Barbacan, drawn by the monk's need to
know. He floated up past the towering spires of natural stone, over the southern
lip of the barrier mountains, and looked down upon a blackness more complete
than any moonless night.
If ten thousand monsters had marched south, five times that number were
gathered here, their dark forms filling the valley from this southern mountain
wall all the way to the plain between the black arms of a singular, smoking
mountain some miles to the north.
A smoking mountain! It was alive with the magic of molten stone, the magic
of demon dactyls.
Avelyn didn't need to go any closer, and yet he felt compelled to do so,
driven by curiosity, perhaps.
No, it wasn't curiosity, the monk realized suddenly, nor was it any false
hope that he might do battle with the creature then and there. Yet he could not
deny the tug of that lone, smoking mountain, calling to him, compelling him . .
.
He had been noticed; there could be no other answer! The demon dactyl had
sensed his spirit presence and was trying to draw him in, to destroy him. That
realization bolstered Avelyn's strength, and he turned away, the southlands wide
before him.
"You have come to join with us," came a soft call, more a telepathic
message than an actual voice, though Avelyn recognized the tone of the speaker.
His spirit swung about again, and there, coming over a rocky bluff, was the
ghost of the man who had trained beside him all those years in St.-Mere-Abelle,
the man who had gone to Pimaninicuit to share in the glory. of their God, and
who, so it now seemed, had fallen so very far.
"To join with us," Quintall had said. To join with us.
"You court demons," Avelyn's spirit cried out.
"I have learned the truth," Quintall countered. "The light within the
shadows, revealing the lies --"
"You are a damned thing!"
Avelyn sensed the spirit's amusement. "I am with the victor," Quintall
assured him.
"We will fight you, every mile, every inch!"
Again, the amusement. "A minor inconvenience and no more," Quintall
replied. "Even as we speak, your mighty champion and your precious companion are
dying. You cannot win, you cannot hide."
The spirit stopped abruptly as Avelyn, boiling with outrage, attacked, his
spirit flying fast against the nearly translucent outline of the evil ghost,
locking with the creature, their battle as much one of wills as of physical
strength.
They wrestled about, their power borne of faith, Avelyn's for his God, and
Quintall's for the demon dactyl. They twisted and gouged, floating about and
through the bare windblown rocks of the Barbacan. Quintall's grasp was the
darkness of the demo cold, drawing the very life force from his opponent.
Avelyn's grasp was the sharpness of light burning his foe.
They locked in agony, neither gaining an advantage, rolling and floating, and
finally, they were apart, facing each other, circling, loathing.
Avelyn knew he could not win, not here, not with the demon dactyl so
close, and the notion that the ghost knew something about Elbryan and Pony that
he did not bothered Avelyn more than a little. Even worse, their fight would
draw unwanted attention from the smoking mountain, the monk feared; and if the
dactyl came upon him as he battled this evil spirit, he would surely be
destroyed.
Avelyn was strangely unafraid of that possibility, would go. willingly to
his God's side if his death came in a battle with this purest of evil. But the
monk had to put his own desires aside, for the others back in the forest would
need to know what he had learned, would need to know of the smoking mountain and
the Barbacan, the confirmation; of their dark suspicions.
Avelyn would get his fight, he decided, but not until the world was
properly warned.
"You are a damned thing, Quintall," he said to his dark foe, but the ghost
only laughed and came on.
Avelyn resisted the urge to meet that charge and his spirit flew away,
soaring fast for the south. He heard the taunts of Quintall, the ghost wrongly
thinking the monk had fled in fear, and he ignored those barbs as meaningless.
Avelyn hoped that he and Quintall would meet again.

Pony and Chipmunk continued their wild ride, weaving about the pines,
cutting sharp corners, Pony's sword flashing, Chipmurk's seemingly endless
stream of daggers spinning out. Or, when either of them was too close for such
weapons, they merely spurred their powerful steeds on, running down the helpless
powries or goblins that ventured into their path.
Even those monsters not in panic, even those trying to get some angle on
the riders, could do little against the sheer power and speed of the rushing
horses.
"To me! To me!" Pony heard Bradwarden call, and she led the way to the
centaur and his three companions, who were enjoying similar success.
Elbryan, though, did not follow. He was not surprised. by the
disappearance of Paulson; the man was too consumed lay grief and rage, and in
truth, the ranger feared that he should not have brought Paulson out here, not
now, not so soon after Cries demise.
The ranger was surprised, however, when he saw the big man's delay was not
by choice, when he saw Paulson scrambling in the mud, trying desperately to stay
out of reach of a giant's smashing club. Elbryan kicked Symphony into a straight
charge. He wished that he had Hawkwing readied, that he could lead the way with
a stinging arrow. He let the horse serve as missile instead, rushing in right
beside the engaged giant, slamming against the creature as it stooped low in its
attempt to get at Paulson.
The giant slipped down into the mud; Symphony staggered and slid but held
his balance.
"Run!" Elbryan cried to the man, and terrified Paulson didn't have to be
told twice. He scrambled about the pines, blinded by the rain and by sheer
terror. He fell in the mud, but was scrambling up even as he hit the ground, his
legs pumping desperately.
Elbryan tried to keep a rear guard, thought to go and, scoop Paulson into
the saddle behind him, but then realized that such a maneuver would cost them
both too much time, would allow the stubborn giant to fall over them. And
Elbryan had no time to spend in battling such a foe, not here, not now, for all
the southern slope of the valley was thick with monsters, including many giants,
most carrying sacks of heavy stones. Rocks began bouncing all about the valley
floor, skipping in the mud, more likely to squash powrie or goblin than any of
the eight attackers, though that possibility did little to dissuade the
monstrous reinforcements.
Elbryan noted to his relief that Pony, Bradwarden, and the others were
making a clean escape, running fast in a line up the north slope, back for the
cover of the deeper forest. The ranger noted, too, that Paulson's riderless
mount was close behind them, and while he was glad that the horse had escaped,
he was not pleased by the sight.
Now Paulson would have to run all the way out of the valley, and he would
never make it unless Elbryan and Symphony could cause enough confusion behind
him. On the ranger went, now taking and deftly stringing Hawkwing, weaving a
zigzag course about the pines, and letting fly an arrow whenever a monster
showed its ugly face.
He kept up the dodging, the quick bursts to break free of any flanking
movements, for several minutes, but time was soon working against him as more
and more monsters poured onto the valley floor, as his options for flight
lessened. A glance back showed the ranger Paulson's lumbering form at least he
thought the dark speck scrambling up the southeastern slope was Paulson -- but
showed him also the huge form of the stubborn giant in close pursuit.
His game was ended, the ranger knew, and he spun Symphony in a tight
circle about the next tree -- poked a powrie hiding amid the thick boughs in the
eye with Hawkwing for good measure -- then cut a straight line in pursuit of
Paulson and the giant.
Huge stones splattered in the mud all about him, stripping the branches
from the sides of nearby trees, and the shouts of a hundred monsters followed
Elbryan out of that valley.
But those shouts were fast receding, Symphony's great strides
outdistancing the pursuit, and sheer luck saw the ranger through the shower of
giant-thrown stones. He got over the lip of the valley, spotted the distant form
of the lumbering giant, and plunged fast among the skeletal forms of the
leafless trees.
Paulson was caught; he tripped over an exposed root and went facedown into
the mud and slush. He heard the giant's victorious laughter, imagined the spiked
club coming up high, and covered his head with his hands, though he realized
that meager defense would do him little good.
 The giant was indeed closing for the kill, lifting its deadly weapon, when
an arrow thudded hard into its back, turning its evil laughter into a sudden
wheeze. Outraged, the behemoth spun.
Elbryan stood right up on Symphony's back, the horse in full gallop. He
drew out Tempest and put his bow to the saddle. The giant was near a wide-
branching elm with thick, solid limbs.
"Be quick and be sure," the ranger said to Symphony, who understood his
plan perfectly.
The horse angled near a second elm, its branches intertwined with the one
near the giant, and Elbryan leaped away, running, surefooted, along one rain-
slicked limb.
The giant turned and stared curiously as the suddenly riderless horse
continued to bear down upon it, but the monster, after a moment's thought,
seemed satisfied with that and lifted its club to meet Symphony's charge.
At the last second, the horse veered sharply to the side, and the giant
lunged, and only then did the stupid fomorian notice the second form, running
along the branches, running right by its bending form.
Tempest flashed like blue-white lightning, tearing a long line across the
monster's throat. The giant came up with a roar and swung hard, but Elbryan had
already dropped off the back of the limb, and that sturdy branch stopped the
club far short of the mark. Under the limb came Elbryan, Tempest stabbing, then
slashing upward into the monster's loins as it tried futilely to extract its
spiked club from the stubborn branch.
And even worse for the giant than the stabbing, searing pain down low was
the wound across its throat, the wound that spurted blood wildly and refused to
allow the monster to draw breath. Its rage played. out, as the terrible wound
and the flying blood took away the monster's strength. The giant let go of the
club, then, and staggered backward; grasping at its torn throat. It looked down
through blurred eyes to see the wicked man back atop his stallion, the other
man, the easy prey, climbing up behind him.
The giant reached for Elbryan and Paulson, but its senses were playing
tricks now and the men were fully twenty feet away. Reaching, reaching, the
giant overbalanced and fell to the ground.
The behemoth heard the hooves receding into the forest, heard the distant
voice of a human female, and then the darkness closed in.

CHAPTER 44
The Revelations of Spirits

"It was a trap, set for you, who lived once in Dundalis," Juraviel said. The elf
sat with Pony and Elbryan near Mather's grave in the diamond-shaped grove.
Tuntun was nearby, along with the other elves who had come to the area, and who,
Juraviel had informed Elbryan, would soon be returning to Andur'Blough
Inninness.
"How would they know that?" Elbryan asked, not yet willing to believe that
the cutting, in the evergreen vale had been done specifically for them.
"They knew that many of the folk battling them had fled Dundalis,"
Juraviel answered. "The village was deserted before they arrived. It would
follow that they understood the valley north of the town to be an important
place, perhaps even a sacred place."
"No," Pony argued. "They would not believe it to be more important than
was the village itself, and that we deserted."
"And I doubt that powries, and certainly not goblins and giants, hold any
appreciation for beauty," Elbryan added.
Juraviel fell silent, digesting the logical arguments. Still, it bothered
the elf that the monsters had gone into that particular valley.
 It bothered Elbryan, too, for the scarring of the evergreens made no
sense. The monsters' take of lumber would not have been useful; the spruce and
pines were too short for catapults, too wet and sappy for wood fires, and too
pliable for any construction. With deeper forests all about them, filled with
taller trees of harder wood, why would the powries go into the evergreen,
valley? Only to lure their enemies, Elbryan had to reason, particularly
Jilseponie and him, the two to whom the valley was indeed sacred.
But it made no sense to the ranger, for the plan was too subtle.
How might the monsters have garnered such information about the leaders of their
enemies?
"They knew," Elbryan said flatly: "They had to know."
"How?" Juraviel demanded.
A whistle from the trees -- from Tuntun, they realized -- alerted them of
a visitor, and a moment later, Brother Avelyn ambled in to join them. He looked
much better, seeming his old bouncy self, except for a slight limp.
"Ho, ho, what?" Pony said to him playfully, drawing a smile from the monk.
"They knew," Avelyn remarked as he sat down hard on the ground. "They
knew, and they know much of us. Too much."
"How have you discerned this?" Juraviel asked.
"A ghost told me," Avelyn replied. Elbryan perked up his ears, wondering
if the monk had been in contact with Uncle Mather.
"While you fought in the valley, I went far to the north," the monk
explained. "I tell you now that this force which has come upon us is but a
predecessor, a testing probe, and that our enemy, the demon dactyl, has many
times this number of soldiers to send down upon us."
"Then we are doomed," Pony whispered.
"Our enemy has another ally, as well," Avelyn went on, looking directly at
Elbryan. "The ghost of a man you killed, in my defense."
"Brother Justice," the ranger reasoned.
Avelyn nodded. "His name is Quintall," he said, for the other title seemed
perfectly ridiculous now. "I spoke with this ghost briefly, before we battled,
and I tell you, he knew of us, of you and of Pony."
"He and I once did battle," the ranger reminded.
Avelyn was shaking his head before Elbryan even finished the predictable
sentence. "He knew that you were in trouble, in the valley. He predicted that
both of you would be slain."
"Then it was a trap," Juraviel said.
"Indeed," remarked Avelyn. "They knew how best to draw us -- you, two, at
least," he said to Elbryan and Pony.
"How could they?" Pony wanted to know. "Brother -- Quintall did not know
us well, certainly did not know our affinity with the pine vale."
"Perhaps the ghost has been about us," came a voice from a nearby tree.
The group glanced over to see Tuntun sitting calmly on a branch.
That seemed plausible enough, but Avelyn suspected that he would have
sensed Quintall's presence had the spirit indeed been about. "Perhaps," the monk
admitted, "or might it be that Quintall is not the only one who has fallen to
the darkness of the dactyl?"
To the small group whose very lives depended on absolute secrecy, there
could have been no more unsettling possibility than that of a traitor in their
midst. A thousand questions filtered through Elbryan's and everyone else's
thoughts as he considered each person of the band. When he came to privately
question the loyalty of Bradwarden, the ranger realized that this exercise was
truly folly.
"We know no such thing," Elbryan said firmly after a lengthy pause in the
conversation. "Likely it was the ghost, a spy for our enemies. Or perhaps the
powries are more cunning than we first believed. Perhaps they have prisoners
hidden away and have tortured information from them."
 "None from Dundalis, surely," argued Pony. "None who might know of our
fondness for the valley."
"It is all speculation," the ranger insisted. "Dangerous thoughts. How
will we function if there remains no trust among us? No," he decided, his stern
tone showing that he would brook no compromise on this point, "we will not cast
suspicion on any in our group. We will not speak of this outside our immediate
circle, and not speak of it at all unless some more substantial evidence can be
found."
"We must be careful then," Avelyn offered.
"Will this grove be next?" Pony asked, a question that unnerved Elbryan.
"All the world will be next," Tuntun said, shifting the focus, "if
Avelyn's words are true."
"They are," the monk insisted. "I saw the monstrous gathering in such
numbers as I would never have imagined."
"In greater numbers than their nature would allow," agreed Juraviel, "were
they not guided."
Pony, who hadn't been involved in the previous discussion at Avelyn's
bedside, seemed not to understand.
"Powries and goblins would not ally for long if there was not a greater
power, a greater evil, holding them together," Juraviel explained.
Pony looked at Avelyn, thinking of his prophecies of doom all those weeks
together on the road, thinking of the weakness of the world the monk constantly
berated and of the name he gave to it. "The dactyl?" she asked. "You are
certain?"
"The dactyl is awake," Avelyn said without hesitation.
"As we feared in Caer'alfar," Juraviel added.
"But I thought that the dactyl was the weakness in men's hearts," Pony
reasoned, "not a physical being."
"It is both," Avelyn explained, recalling the training he had received at
St.-Mere-Abelle and thinking it ironic now that those same men who had taught
him of the demon dactyl had, through their own weakness and impiety, helped to
facilitate the return of the monster. "It is the weakness of man that allows the
demon to come forth, but when it does, it is a physical monster indeed, a being
of great power who can command the wills of those with evil in their hearts, who
can dominate the monstrous hordes and tempt men such as Quintall, men who have
fallen from the ways of God, to its side."
"There are more beliefs than those of your church," Tuntun put in dryly.
"And all our gods are one God," Avelyn replied quickly, not wanting to
offend the elf. "A God of differing names perhaps, but of similar tenets. And
when those tenets are misinterpreted," the monk went on, his voice turning
grave, "when they are used for personal gain or as a means of exacting
punishment or forcing submission upon others, then let all of Corona beware, for
the demon dactyl will rouse from its slumbers."
"It is a dark time," Juraviel agreed.
Elbryan bowed his head but in thought and not in despair. Such
philosophical discussions did not elude the ranger, but Elbryan understood that
his role here was to consider their position in terms of their day-to-day
existence, that he might properly guide those folk, closer to two hundred than
to one, who had come under his care. At that moment, the ranger had more
immediate problems than some mythical monster hundreds of miles away, for if
there was indeed a traitor in their midst, then the threat would increase.
* * *
"They knew, Uncle Mather," Elbryan whispered when at last the image came
to him at Oracle. "They knew that scourging the valley would wound me, would,
perhaps, even bring me out of hiding. Y4 how can they know of me, more than the
name of Nightbird, which I have not hidden, and of my exploits against them? How
could they know of my loves, of a place that is special only within my heart?"
 The ranger sat back, leaning on the back wall of the small cave. He
continued to stare silently, not expecting an answer but hoping that, as was
often the case, the image of his uncle Mather would guide him through the jumble
of his own thoughts, to reason through his dilemma.
He saw another image in the mirror -- or was it merely in his mind? -- one
of a man he had selected to go along on the raid to the evergreen vale, but who
had refused, claiming sickness. Elbryan knew well that the man had not been ill,
and he considered the sudden cowardice truly out of character. But with no time
for such petty problems, the ranger had dismissed the incident.
Elbryan envisioned again the return of the battered group to the main
encampment: Paulson ,dropping down wearily from Symphony's back, Pony leaning
against Bradwarden as if, were it not for the centaur's solid frame, she would
have simply tumbled over to the ground. He saw reflected in the mirror those
images that had been peripheral to him at that time: a supposedly ill man
standing at the side of the camp and, more important, the expression on that
man's face, hardly noticed at the time, but clear now to Elbryan.
The man was surprised, truly surprised, that they had returned.

Using all the stealth he had learned in his years with the Touel'alfar,
Elbryan followed Tol Yuganick out of the encampment late one dark night, several
days after the abandoned raid on the evergreen valley.
The big man, supposedly in search of firewood, looked back over his broad
shoulders often, Elbryan noted, obviously trying to ensure that he was not'
being followed. His precaution did little against the stealthy skill of the
ranger, though, and so Tol was oblivious of Elbryan's presence, obviously so,
when he met with a bandy-limbed powrie less than two miles from the band's
present hideout.
"I did as you demanded," Elbryan heard the big man complain. "I delivered
them, right where I said I would."
"Yach! Ye said the ranger," the powrie grumbled back, "and his woman
friend. Ye made no talk of other warriors or of that wretched centaur!"
"Did you think Nightbird would be so foolish as to go so near Dundalis
alone?"
"Silence!" the powrie snapped at him. "Take care yer attitude, Tol
Yuganick; Bestesbulzibar is not far, I promise, and he hungers for human flesh."
Elbryan silently mouthed the unfamiliar name and noted how Toys ruddy face
blanched at the mere mention. The ranger didn't know what this creature,
Bestesbulzibar, might be, but his respect for it as an enemy was already
considerable.
"We must defeat Nightbird," the powrie insisted, "and soon. My master has
noticed the problems here, though we are many leagues behind the battle lines,
and my master is not pleased."
"That is your problem, Ulg Tik'narn, and not my own!" Tol growled. "You
have used me, powrie, and left a foul taste in my mouth that no river could wash
out were I to swallow the whole of it!"
Elbryan nodded, glad that the man felt some remorse for his traitorous
actions.
"And I'm done with you and with Bestesbulzibar the winged devil!" He
turned indignantly on his heel and started to stride away.
"Yach, and with the ghost that finds yer dreams," the powrie asked slyly,
"the ghost who beckons to Bestesbulzibar's every call?"
Tol Yuganick hesitated and turned back.
"And what might Nightbird do if he discovers your treachery?" Ulg Tik'narn
asked.
"We had a deal," Tol protested.
"We have a deal," Ulg Tik'narn corrected. "Ye'll do as I say, fool human,
or me master will destroy ye most unpleasantly."
 Tol bowed his head, his face contorting as he struggled, pragmatism
against conscience.
"Ye already a fallen thing," the powrie went on, chuckling. "Yer course
cannot be reversed, yer errors cannot be corrected. Ye delivered Nightbird to us
once, and now ye must do so again, for unless he's taken, there'll be no rest
for ugly Tol Yuganick, no sleep that will evade the intrusions of the ghost
Quintall, no path that will get you far enough from the flight of
Bestesbulzibar, who is all-powerful."
Elbryan could hardly draw breath at the realization that he and his little
band had made such an impact on the very heart of this monstrous army. He
recognized the name of the turncoat spirit, of course, and considering that the
powrie referred to Quintall as but a pawn of Bestesbulzibar, the ranger
suspected the identity of that creature.
"There is a grove," Tol began reluctantly, "diamond-shaped."
The words stirred Elbryan; he put an arrow to Hawkwing before he even
realized and had the bow leveled, its mark the space between treacherous Tol's
eyes.
"It is even more special to the ranger, a place that he will not allow to
be defiled, whatever the odds," Tol went on.
Elbryan didn't want to kill the man; whatever Tol's weakness, the ranger
didn't want to shoot him dead without explanation, without hearing the threats
that had been laid upon the man to turn him so.
But Elbryan held no such sympathy for powries, and so he shifted the angle
of the bow just a bit, gritted his teeth, and let fly, the arrow whipping across
the twenty feet, unerringly, so he thought. At the last moment, the arrow turned
in mid-flight, thudding hard into a tree. Ulg Tik'narn was away in the blink of
an eye, running fast into the forest night, but before Tol could move, the
ranger leaped before him, Tempest in hand. A glance at the fleeing powrie told
Elbryan that the ,creature posed no immediate threat.
Tol, on the other hand, had his huge sword in hand, eyeing Elbryan
nervously.
"I heard," the ranger said, "everything."
Tol didn't reply, just glanced around, looking for an escape.
"You cannot outrun me in the woods at night," Elbryan said evenly.

"Then you outrun me," the big man retorted. "I've wanted your head since the
first day we met, smelly ranger, and be gone now or be sure that I'll get it!"
Elbryan recognized the true fear behind that bluff. Tol had no desire to
fight him, had no desire to face the mighty cut of Tempest.
"Throw your weapon to the ground," Elbryan said calmly.
"I'll not play judge to you, Tol Yuganick, not out here. You come with me
back to the camp and speak your crimes plainly, and let us see what the people
choose for you."
Tol scoffed at the notion. "Drop my weapon, that you might more easily
wrap a noose about my neck?" he said.
"Unlikely," the ranger replied. "The folk are merciful."
Tol spat at him. "I give you one last chance to run," he said.
"Do not do this," Elbryan warned, but Tol came upon him in a wild rush,
his heavy sword slashing.
Tempest flashed left, parried up, went out left again and then right,
Elbryan easily fending off the clumsy attacks. The ranger poked the smaller
blade ahead, bringing its tip near the hilt of Toys jabbing sword as he deftly
sidestepped the large man's forward thrust. A twist of Elbryan's wrist brought
Tempest's blade hard against the big man's hand, and a further twist turned
Tol's hand right over awkwardly.
Elbryan shoved wide his sword arm, and Tol's weapon went flying harmlessly
to the side, splashing down into a muddy puddle.
 The big man gasped in desperation, unarmed and eyeing the deadly ranger.
"Do not," Elbryan began, but Tol turned and stumbled away.
Elbryan flipped Tempest up above his head, lining the blade for a throw.
He held back, though, as Tol passed the nearest tree, as a pair of muscled
equine legs flashed out, connecting solidly on the side of the man's head,
launching him head over heels to crash hard at the base of a wide ash tree.
Bradwarden stepped into the small clearing.
"I followed him out here," Elbryan explained.
"And I followed yerself," the centaur replied. "And I was carrying Avelyn
on me back. Ye should be more to looking past yer arse, though yer target's past
yer nose."
Elbryan glanced all about. "And where is the monk?"
"Chasing a powrie," Bradwarden explained. "Said not to worry about that
little one."
Elbryan looked over at Tol, the man's head lolling about on his shoulders.
He was in a sitting position, wedged in tightly against the hard trunk.
"I'll not presume to judge him," the ranger said.
"Always for mercy, as ye were with the three rogue trappers."
"And that choice was the best," Elbryan reminded.
"Aye, but this one is not," the centaur insisted. "This one's a fallen
thing, with no redeeming. His crime cannot be tolerated, so I say, for he'd have
given us all to the beast to save his skin." Bradwarden eyed the dazed man
contemptuously. "He knows it, too. Suren that ye're showing him less mercy by
letting him live with the terrible thing he's done."
"I'll not play judge."
"But I will," Bradwarden said firmly. "Ye might want to be going now, me
friend. Avelyn might be needing ye, and ye might want to not be watching this."
Elbryan eyed the brutal centaur squarely, but understood that he had
little power to sway Bradwarden's determination. And whatever his feelings of
mercy, Elbryan would not battle Bradwarden for the sake of Tol Yuganick, who had
indeed fallen too far. He looked back at Tol, the man oblivious and probably
already mortally wounded by the powerful kick.
"Be merciful," the ranger said to Bradwarden. "He laments his choice."
"He made the choice willingly."
"Even if that is true, mercy is friend to the just," Elbryan insisted.
Bradwarden nodded somberly, and Elbryan scooped up Hawkwing and ran off
into the night, behind the departing powrie, though the ranger held faith that
Avelyn would know how to deal with the dwarf. Less than ten steps into the
woods, he heard a single thump, a centaur's kick against a head propped by a
tree trunk, and he knew that it was finished.
He felt sick to his stomach, but he could not disagree, not out here with
so many lives at stake. Tol had chosen, and Tol had paid for his choice.
Around a bend far down the dark trail, the ranger happened upon a band of
powries lying on the ground, most dead but some still twitching in the last
moments of their lives. A lightning bolt had hit them, the ranger realized, and
he knew that he was close.
He paused end tuned his senses to the night, and he heard speaking, not so
far away. Running fast, but silently, Elbryan soon spotted Avelyn, making fast
work of yet another powrie, the burly monk holding the dwarf under his arm,
repeatedly slamming the creature's head into a tree trunk.
Elbryan meant to stop there, but a movement farther to the south along the
trail caught his attention. He came in sight of the is last powrie -- the one,
Ulg Tik'narn, who had been speaking with Tol Yuganick. Sliding down to one knee,
Elbryan had Hawkwing up and leveled. Again his shot was true, but again, the
arrow swerved at the last possible moment and flew off harmlessly into the
night.
Frustrated, the ranger abandoned his bow and ran on, sword in hand.
 The powrie, apparently realizing that it could not possibly outdistance
the long-legged human, skidded to a stop arid turned about, a gleaming, serrated
sword in hand.
"Nightbird," the dwarf breathed. "Yach, ye die!"
Elbryan said nothing, just came in hard and fast, batting Tempest twice
against the powrie's blade, then thrusting the sword through the opened
defenses, straight for the unarmored dwarf's heart.
The blade turned aside, compelled by some force Elbryan did not
understand, and the startled ranger was overbalanced suddenly, falling forward.
He slapped his free hand across desperately, accepting the hit on his open palm
from the smiling powrie's sword.
"What?" the ranger asked, skidding aside and turning to squarely face this
deceptive foe.
Laughing, Ulg Tik'narn advanced.
From a short distance away, Brother Avelyn watched the scene curiously,
saw Elbryan perform another apparently successful attack, only to have Tempest
fly wide at the last instant. The ranger was not caught unaware this time,
though, and he held his balance and reverted to defensive posture quickly enough
to prevent any stinging counters.
Avelyn put away the stone he was holding, graphite, for the lightning had
been of little effect on this one when he had last used it. There was something
very unusual about this powrie, the monk realized, some defensive magic that
Avelyn did not understand.
He took out the carbuncle he had taken from dead Quintall, fell into its
magic even as Elbryan slashed his weapon -- to no avail -- twice at the laughing
powrie's head.
Then Avelyn saw the reason, saw clearly the powrie's studded bracers,
glowing fiercely with enchantment.
"Good enough, then," the monk growled. "Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn took out the
other stone he had retrieved from dead Quintall, the powerful sunstone, and he
sent its focused energies out.
"Yach, ye can not kill me, foolish Nightbird," Ulg Tik'narn was saying,
holding wide his short arms and steadily advancing on the confused Elbryan. "Me
master protects me. 'Bestes --'
The word ended with a gurgle as the waves of magic suppression rolled over
the dactyl-forged bracers, as Tempest pierced through the dwarf's chest.
"I do not know the name," Juraviel admitted, looking across the campfire
at Elbryan.
"But I do," Avelyn put in, resting his bulk against a fallen log.
"Bestesbulzibar, Aztemephostophe, Pelucine, Decambrinezarre --"
"All names of the dactyl demons," Juraviel said, for two of the strange
titles rang familiar to the elf.
"Then we know, if the powrie can be believed, that there is indeed a
beast, a physical beast, guiding our enemy," said Pony.
"Then we know," Avelyn said with certainty, and he threw down the
enchanted bracers, evil items that the monk would not allow to be worn. "I have
known for some time of this beast and of its home."
"The Barbacan," said Elbryan.
"The smoking mountain," Avelyn added.
A long moment of silence ensued, all five -- the three humans, Juraviel,
and Tuntun -- feeling the weight of confirmation. and feeling suddenly
vulnerable. There was indeed a very real dactyl, and it controlled Quintall's
ghost, and -- whether through Quintall or reports from its monstrous forces --
it knew of their raiding band, knew of Nightbird.
Avelyn stood up and started away; Pony rushed to catch up to him.
"I know my destiny," he said to her quietly, though Elbryan, who had moved
to follow, and the two elves, with their keen ears, heard him clearly. "I know
now why I was compelled by the spirit of God to steal the stones and run from
St.-Mere-Abelle."
"You mean to go to the Barbacan," Pony reasoned.
"I have seen the army that has gathered there," Avelyn replied. "I have
seen the darkness that will soon sweep down upon us, upon all the kingdom: St.-
Mere-Abelle and Palmaris, Ursal, and even to Entel on the Belt-and-Buckle.
Perhaps far Behren is not safe."
The monk turned back to look Pony directly in the eye, then past her, to
Elbryan. "We cannot defeat the dactyl and ifs minions," Avelyn insisted. "Our
people have grown weak, and the elves have become too isolated and too few. The
only way in which the darkness might be averted is if our enemy is decapitated,
if the binding force that holds powrie beside hated goblin, if the sheer evil
willpower that focuses the wild giants is destroyed."
"You mean to travel hundreds of miles to do battle with a creature of such
power?" Elbryan asked skeptically.
"No army gathered by all the human kingdoms could get near the dactyl,"
Avelyn replied, "but I might."
"A small group might," Pony added, looking at Elbryan.
The ranger considered that notion for a moment, then nodded grimly.
Pony looked back at Avelyn, stared deeply into the eyes of this man who
had become to her as a brother. She saw the pain there, the fear that was not
present when the monk had proclaimed that he alone would go. Avelyn was afraid
for her, and not for himself.
"You say it is your destiny," Pony remarked, "and so, since fete has put
me beside you, is it mine."
Avelyn was shaking his head, but Pony pressed on.
"Do not even think to try to stop me," she insisted. "Where am I to be
safe, in any case? Here, when the powries lay traps meant for us? In the
southland, perhaps, running ahead of the advancing hordes?"
"Or even in the elven home?" Juraviel added grimly, unexpectedly lending
support to Pony's argument.
"'Where indeed?" asked the woman. "I would rather confront the monster
face-to-face, to stand by Avelyn's side as he meets his destiny, as all the
world holds its breath."
Avelyn looked at Elbryan as if he expected the ranger to protest. How
could Elbryan, so obviously in love with Pony, allow her to go?
But Avelyn didn't fully understand the nature of that love.
"And I will stand by Pony's side," the ranger said firmly. "And by
Avelyn's."
The monk's expression was one of sheer incredulity.
"Was not Terranen Dinoniel an elf-trained ranger?" Elbryan asked, looking
about and finally settling his gaze on Juraviel and Tuntun.
"He was half-elf, as well," Tuntun put in, as if that fact put the
legendary hero somewhat above Elbryan's station.
"Then I will have to go along to make up the other half," Juraviel said
somberly. He met Tuntun's wide-eyed stare without surprise. "With Lady
Dasslerond's blessings, of course," he said. "Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn burst out
suddenly, surprised and obviously pleased by the unexpected support. But the
boisterous moment could not last, not with so grim a prospect as a journey to
the Barbacan before them. The monk looked in turn at each of them and nodded,
then walked off to be alone with his conscience and his courage.
When Elbryan and Pony left the elves, they were surprised to find an
eavesdropping friend, standing only a dozen or so paces into the forest, unseen
and unheard despite his great bulk.
"Ah, but I knew it'd come to this," Bradwarden said. "Humans" -- the
centaur spat derisively -- "always thinking o' ways to be remembered." He shook
his head. "Get yer saddlebags for me, then, yell need one to carry supplies, and
better if that one knows how to get away from trouble."
"You intend to accompany us?" Elbryan asked.
"A long road," the centaur replied. "Ye'll be needing me pipes to soothe
yer nerves, don't ye doubt!"

Part Five
THE BEAST

It is settled, Uncle Mather, a new stasis, a level of play. Our enemies know of
us, and there is certainly concern among their ranks, but they have a bigger
goal before them and that diversion gives us some hope, gives us the ability to
proclaim with confidence that they will not catch us.
But neither will we deliver any significant blows. A pair of catapults
fell before our fires, but what are they compared to the hundreds of war engines
in a line rolling down from the Barbacan? We have killed nearly a dozen giants
in the last two weeks, but how significant are they when a thousand more march
against Honce-the-Bear? And now that we are known, our enemies take precautions,
moving about in larger, better-prepared bands. Each kill comes harder.
So we will survive for the time, I believe, but we will do nothing
decisive, not here, halfway between the fighting front and the source of the
invasion. Yet, if Brother Avelyn is correct, if his destiny lies in the north
and we can deliver him there, if he can battle and defeat the demon dactyl, then
our enemies will be without their binding force. Who will quell the ancient and
deep hatred between powrie and goblin when Bestesbulzibar is gone? It is likely
that all the invasion will disintegrate into separate groups, fighting one
another as much as the folk of the kingdom. It is likely that most of the
giants, normally reclusive beasts, will turn back for their mountain homes, far
from the villages of humans.
I do laugh when I consider how simple it all sounds, for I know that the
path ahead is the darkest that ever I will tread, and that the end of that path
is darker still.
Dark, too, is the journey for those men and women I leave behind, who will
continue the fight while ushering their more helpless kin to a safer place -- if
one can ever be found. I hold no comforting illusions; that group is in danger
as great as my own. Eventually, if they cannot find a haven, they will be
killed, one at a time, perhaps, as was poor Cric, or perhaps the goblins will
discover their camp in the night and slaughter them all.
What clouds are these that so cover our heads, blacker than the blackest
storm?
It is the life that fate has chosen for us, Uncle Mather. It is the life
that fate has thrust upon us, and I am proud indeed that few, so very few, have
shrunk before their sudden, unasked for responsibilities. For every Tol Yuganick
there are a hundred, I say, who will not give in to
any threat, to any torture, who share loyalty and courage and who willingly take
up the fight, even if that means their death, that their kin might win out.
I am a ranger, trained to accept duty, however harsh, and to accept
whatever fate holds for me during the execution of that duty. That is my debt
and my honor. I will fight, with all the skills the elves gave me, with all the
weapons at my disposal, for those tenets I hold dear for
the protection of innocents end for the higher principles of justice above all
else. And an that course, in these times, I have by reason of necessity become
leader of the folk of the three villages. But they, these innocents placed in
the path of war, and not I, are the true heroes of the day, for each of them --
the trappers who could have been far from harm's way; Bradwarden, whose fight
this is not; Belster O'Comely and Shawno of End-o'-the-World-each of them
willingly fights on, though they are not bound by debt. Every man, every woman,
every child willingly takes up arms because of their common heritage, because
they understand the value of unity, because they care for the
fate of those in the towns to the south.
I understand now what it means to be a ranger, Uncle Mather. To be a
ranger is to accept the frailties of humanity with the knowledge that the good
outweighs the bad, to serve as an example, often an unappreciated one, that when
darkness descends upon those about you -- even many of those who, perhaps,
persecuted you -- they will recognize your value and follow that lead To be a
ranger is to show by example those about you what they might be when the need
arises, to reflect openly the better aspects of what as in every human
character.
The men and women I leave behind will serve as I have served, will lift up
the spirits and the will, the courage and the conviction, of all those they
subsequently meet.
And for myself, I pledge now that I will deliver Brother Avelyn to the
Barbacan, to the fiendish head of our enemy. And if I perish in the journey,
then so be it. If all of us, my beloved Pony included, perish and fail, then let
another take up my sword and my cry.
The blackness will not fall complete until the last free human spirit has
succumbed.
-ELBRYAN THE NIGHTBIRD

CHAPTER 45
Parting

It took Elbryan and the other leaders of the rebel force several days to get
everything organized with the twenty-five warriors and eight score refugees they
would leave behind. The remaining band would cease its hit-and-hide warfare and
concentrate on getting all the folk to safer points in the south, trying to
parallel the advancing army without engaging it.
For those few heading north to the Barbacan, it was a difficult parting,
but especially so for Elbryan, who had come to feel as a ... father to these
people, as their trusted protector. If they were found and destroyed, the ranger
knew he would never forgive himself.
But the other argument was more compelling; if the dactyl could not be
defeated, then there would be no safe havens, then all the world as the humans
knew it would be destroyed. Pony reminded the ranger often that he had trained
those warriors who would escort the refugees, that they went with not only his
blessing but also his woodland skills. And, like a father who has
watched his children grow beyond his protection, Elbryan had to let them go.
His course, a darker road by far, lay the other way.
They set out at an easy pace, with Elbryan riding Symphony -- but only for a
short distance -- that he might hasten out to run a perimeter guard, and with
Pony and Avelyn walking beside Bradwarden, who had pipes in hand, but wouldn't
start playing until they had put the monstrous enclaves of Dundalis, Weedy
Meadow, and End-o'-the-World far behind them.
Just out of sight of the encampment, the small group came upon a party of
elves -- there might have been five -- or there might have been twenty, so
fleeting were their glimpses of the ever-elusive sprites -- dancing amid the
budding branches of several trees.
"What says Lady Dasslerond?" Elbryan inquired of Belli'mar Juraviel.
"Fare well, says she," replied the elf. "Fare well to Elbryan the
Nightbird, to Jilseponie, to good Brother Avelyn, to mighty Bradwarden, and," he
finished with a flurry, beating his tiny wings furiously to set himself gently
down on the ground, "to Belli'mar Juraviel, who will represent Caer'alfar on
this most important quest!" The elf dipped a low bow.
Elbryan looked up at Tuntun, who was sitting on the branch and smiling --
a grin that did not seem so sincere to the perceptive ranger. "See to him,
Nightbird," the elven female said threateningly. "I will hold you personally
responsible for my brother's safety."
"Ho, and a mighty responsibility that is, when facing the likes of a demon
dactyl!" howled Bradwarden.
"If I had my say, Belli'mar Juraviel would remain with his own," Elbryan
replied. "Of course, if I had my way, then Pony -- Jilseponie -- would remain
with the folk of the three sacked villages, as would Avelyn, and Bradwarden's
pipes would greet the dawn each day in this forest, his home."
"Ho, ho, what!" bellowed Avelyn. "Brave Nightbird would fight the beast
alone!"
"Aye, and cut a killing swath through the army ye seen 'tween the arms o'
the dactyl's mountain!" added Bradwarden.
Elbryan could only laugh at their jibes. He kicked Symphony into a short
gallop, rushing down the path.
"Fare well to you, Nightbird!" he heard Tuntun call, and then he was
alone, riding the perimeter, glad for this newest addition to the party, despite
his comments to the contrary.
He sensed a movement not far away and asked Symphony to walk slowly. He
relaxed when Paulson and Chipmunk came onto the path, some distance ahead and
apparently oblivious of him.
"If we missed them, I'll beat ye silly," the large man huffed at Chipmunk,
who wisely shifted to the side, out of arm's reach. Elbryan did not miss the
fact that they were dressed for the road, though the others would not be going
to join with the refugees until the next morning. The ranger moved his mount
into the cover of a pair of pines and let the two approach, hoping to discern
their intent, thinking that they might have had enough of it all and were
striking out on their own.
Aside from Paulson's typical grumbling, he caught no direction to their
conversation.
"My greetings," he said suddenly as they neared, startling the pair.
"And to yerself," said Paulson. "Glad I am that we did not miss yer
departure."
"Have you plans of your own?"
Paulson eyed him directly. "What's for us with Elbryan gone?" he wanted to
know.
The ranger looked hard at the man, then shrugged. "We will need to get the
refugees to the south. There can be no further delays."
"Ye've got more than a score of fighters for that task," Paulson answered.
"A score that will need Paulson and Chipmunk to lead them," Elbryan.
reasoned.
"They'll more listen to Belster O'Comely," Paulson argued. "And the able
man's already taken charge, by all accounts from the big camp. Our job here is
done."
"Then you are free of responsibility," Elbryan replied, "to go as you
will, where you will. And to go with my thanks and the gratitude of all who
survived the invasion."
Paulson looked at Chipmunk, and the small man nodded nervously.
"With you," Paulson said suddenly. "The way we're seeing it, the goblin
that killed Cric was sent by this Bestesbulzi-thing, so we're holding it
responsible."
Elbryan's expression was skeptical.
"Are ye knowing anyone better for the woods?" Paulson argued.
 "Ye just said that we were free to choose," Chipmunk added sheepishly,
ducking behind Paulson's bulk as he spoke.
The others caught up to the ranger then, Bradwarden -- with Juraviel
nestled comfortably on his back, the elf tucked between the heavy packs --
moving up right beside Elbryan.
"Our friends Paulson and Chipmunk would like to join us," the ranger
explained.
"We decided that a small group'd get through all the better," Bradwarden
complained.
"The two of us take up less room than yerself alone, centaur," Paulson
argued.
Elbryan smiled wryly at Bradwarden before the fearsome centaur could take
offense. "True enough," the ranger agreed.
"And we're knowing the ways of the woods," Paulson went on, "and the ways
of our enemies. Ye get in a fight and yell be glad that me and Chipmunk are with
ye."
Elbryan looked at Bradwarden again, since he and the centaur had been
unofficially accepted as the leaders of the expedition. Bradwarden's hardened
visage fast softened under the ranger's plaintive look. "Come along then," he
said to the two men. "But one bad word for me piping and I'll be eating more
than the meat that's on me back!"
So they set out then, seven strong. Seven against the tens of thousands
and -- in odds that seemed even less favorable -- seven mortals against one
demon dactyl. At the edge of the forest surrounding Dundalis, Elbryan slipped
down from his mount.
Run free, my friend," he said to the horse. "Perhaps I shall return to
you." The horse did not immediately run off, but stood stamping the ground, as
if in protest.
The ranger sensed that the stallion did not want to remain behind, and for
a moment, Elbryan entertained the thought of riding all the way. But how could
he do that in all good conscience, when he knew that Symphony might not be able
to cross the mountainous Barbacan, and certainly would not be able to go into
Aida's tunnels with him.
"Run on!" he commanded, and Symphony bolted out of the immediate area, but
stood quiet in the shadows of some trees not far away.
So it was Elbryan, and not the horse, who walked away, when the others
caught up to him. It was not an easy thing for the ranger to do.
They struck out west more than north, wanting to cut a wide circuit around
the long caravan that Avelyn had magically observed. Even from several miles to
the north and west of Endo'-the-World, from atop a hillock, they could see a
long line of dust rising into the air, moving south, descending upon Dundalis
and the other towns.
"All the way to the Belt-and-Buckle," Avelyn remarked grimly, and from
that vantage point, it seemed impossible that the monk might be wrong.
There were no roads out here once the group got beyond the logging areas of End-
o'-the-World. The forest was old, with tall, dark trees and sparse undergrowth,
and there were rivers to follow, some whose waters had come all the way down
from the high peaks of the Barbacan. Occasionally, the group came upon a lone
house or a few clustered together, the real frontier families, living beyond
even the meager civilization of the three small villages. It was not a
comforting thing for the seven to find that every house they chanced upon,
including one whose occupants had been friends of Paulson's band, was deserted.
They found the reason the tenth day out, when Elbryan noted a line of
tracks preceding them in the muddy riverbank.
"Goblins," the ranger informed his companions, "and a few humans."
"Could be a rogue band," Bradwarden offered, "and nothing to do with our
enemy in the north."
 "Goblins been in this region for a thousand years," Paulson added. "Me
friends've fought with them often, so they felled me."
"But do goblins normally take prisoners?" the ranger wanted to know, and
that admittedly unusual circumstance tipped them off that this was no chance
incident, no rogue band.
The demon will draw all the goblins from all the holes, Avelyn had warned.
How Elbryan wished he still had Symphony with him, that he could ride fast
to catch up to the band!
"We slip back into the woods to avoid them," Bradwarden said. "No problem
with that."
"Except that they have prisoners," Pony was fast to interject.
"We're not knowing that," Bradwarden replied.
"Human tracks with the goblins," Avelyn argued.
"Might be that they had prisoners," Bradwarden answered bluntly.
Elbryan was about to argue the point with the centaur, to point out that,
whatever their mission, they first had to see if there were people in need of
their assistance, when he got some unexpected help from Paulson.
"They're running an army," the big man reasoned, "so they're needing
slaves. If this raiding group is in league with the dactyl, then they're knowing
better than to kill those who might be worked to death."
Bradwarden threw up his arms in defeat, and motioned for Elbryan to run on
and see what he might see. The ranger did just that, circling west of the
riverbank as he made his way to the north. He came upon them at last at a bend
in the river, where the goblins -- many goblins! -- had stopped to drink, but
were keeping a score of humans, three quarters of them women and children, back
from the badly desired water.
The ranger bowed his head as he considered the options. Thankfully, there
were no giants or even powries to be seen, but there were at least fifty goblins
down there, with several, Elbryan noted, wearing the black-and-gray insignia of
the dactyl's army. Even if he and his powerful band attacked the group, how
might they stop the goblins from killing the prisoners?
Elbryan went back to report to his companions, expecting that a furious
argument would ensue. Was their mission the overriding factor here, for if they
attacked and were beaten back, killed, or captured, then who would go on to the
smoking mountain to stand against the demon dactyl?

"Only fifty?" Bradwarden huffed. "And only goblins? I'll warm me bow on the
first score, trample the second score, and give me club a taste on the last
ten!"
"How do we hit them without endangering the prisoners?" the ever-pragmatic
Pony asked. The question was not meant to dissuade any attack, Elbryan knew in
looking at his determined companion, but to logically guide the group in the
best possible direction.
"We separate them," Elbryan answered. "If even one or more ventures away
into the woods, lags behind, or gets too far in front. . ."
Six grim nods came back at the ranger. Within the hour, they were
shadowing the caravan, learning their enemies' movement, discerning the pecking
order among the goblin ranks. At one point, when the riverbank grew more narrow
and impassible, the goblins sent a group of six out to find a new route.
They died quickly, quietly, cut down by bows and daggers, by flashing
sword and crushing cudgel. So fast and complete was the massacre that Avelyn
never used his magic. The monk did get in close enough to one wounded goblin to
finish it with a flurry of deadly punches, but he kept his magical energy in
reserve.
When it became apparent that the first six would not return, the goblins
sent out a couple more to find them. Elbryan, Juraviel, and Bradwarden shot them
down as soon as they were out of sight of the caravan.
 "They are onto us," Pony reasoned when the band of seven moved back to
view the main group, goblins rushing about nervously, tightening the ropes do
the prisoners, herding the miserable humans together. The worst of it for the
onlookers came whenever a goblin beat a human, particularly when one slapped a
small child to the ground. Gritting his teeth, holding discipline supreme to
emotion, Elbryan held his companions at bay. The goblins were wary, he reminded
them all; this was not the time to strike.
"We hide the bodies," Elbryan plotted, "and let any more scouts they send
out go unhindered. Let them find the paths. When, they are on the move again,
the forest thick about them, we hit them hard."
"Aye," the centaur agreed. "Give them a couple of hours to think that
their miserable kin just ran away. Let them drop their guard again, and then
we'll take the lot of them and pay them back for every slap."
Elbryan looked to Avelyn. "You must play an important role," the ranger
said. "We will cut the goblins to pieces, I do not doubt, but only your magic
can protect the prisoners long enough."
The monk nodded grimly, then looked at Pony. Elbryan did as well, sensing
that the pair, Avelyn and Pony, shared a secret. The ranger's expression grew
even more incredulous when he noticed Avelyn hand a piece of graphite to her,
and green malachite after that.
The goblins did indeed send out another pair of scouts, and these two
moved unhindered through the woods, then went back to the main group reporting
no sign of their missing eight companions. Since desertions among goblin ranks
were surely not an uncommon thing, the goblin leaders seemed to relax almost
immediately, and with new trails found, they soon started the caravan along its
plodding way once more.
And again, they were shadowed, every step, and even led, though they did
not know it, by the ranger as he scouted out the perfect spot for the ambush.
Elbryan had found just what he was looking for, a narrow pass between a steep,
high ridge and a muddy pond, and was returning to lay out the plans when he
found that his hand was being forced.
Pony's expression was the first indication that something was wrong, and
as soon as he gained a vantage point on the monsters, the ranger figured it out.
A dispute had arisen between one or more of the prisoners and their goblin
captors, and now the humans were being punished once more. Elbryan winced with
every blow, feeling the pain as acutely as if the goblin's club had been aimed
at him; but again, he tried to hold back, tried to keep perspective and hold the
greater goal above his emotions.
But then one prisoner, a young man of about the same age Elbryan had been
when Dundalis was first overrun, was pulled from the line. The goblins'
intentions for this one soon became obvious; they meant to make him an example.
The young, man was forced to his knees, his head pulled low, exposing the back
of his neck.
"No, no, no," Elbryan whispered, and truly he was torn. All the plan and
all the prisoners had a better chance if the ambush was carefully plotted and
choreographed, and yet how could the ranger stand idly by and watch this
unfortunate young man be sacrificed?
Elbryan could not watch idly, of course, and as soon as Hawkwing came up,
the others realized that the time for action was upon them.
The goblin's sword went up high, but fell harmlessly to the ground as
Elbryan's arrow slammed into the creature's chest. Elbryan came charging through
the trees, screaming wildly, readying another arrow:
Goblins scrambled, one calling out commands -- until its words became a
gurgle, its mouth filled with its own blood, Elbryan's second arrow deep in its
throat.
"Oh hurry!" Avelyn cried to Pony, for the two had laid plans of how they
might get to the prisoners.
 Pony was trying to hurry, concentrating with all her will on the
malachite. She had done this before, in practice with Avelyn, but now the
pressure was intense, the price of failure too great.
"Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn howled at her. "You know that you can do it, and do
it well, my girl!"
The encouragement pushed her over the edge, into the depths of the stone's
magic. She felt her weight lessening, felt as light as a feather.
Avelyn lifted her easily from the ground and threw her in the direction of
the monstrous caravan. Pony floated up as she went, grabbing the branches of
trees and propelling herself along. She crossed over Elbryan, the ranger engaged
with sword now, battling a line of goblins and, amazingly, driving them back.
She crossed over the goblins, scrambling high and keeping quiet, until she
was, at last, directly above the huddled group of prisoners. Pony held her
breath, noting the movements of the goblins, thinking by their actions and by
the snatches of screamed commands she caught that they were indeed planning to
harm the human prisoners.
The woman looked worriedly at the other stone Avelyn had given her, then
at her own sword, wondering which she would be better to trust. Either way, her
situation was about to become desperate.

Elbryan's rage did not relent. Two goblins rushed to intercept him, but he
batted their weapons aside with a furious two-handed swipe of Hawkwing. He
dropped the bow as it moved past the creatures; and in the same lightning-fast
movement, drew out Tempest, thrusting it into the belly of the closest creature.
The ranger punched out with his free hand; connecting solidly on the other
goblin's chin, and he charged on, tearing free his sword.
The stunned goblin rubbed its chin and tried to rise to follow, but
Bradwarden was right on the ranger's heels and was quick to trample the wretched
thing into the dust.
Then the centaur was beside Elbryan, singing at the top of his voice,
running goblins down and clubbing goblins down. Their momentum carried them deep
into the goblin ranks, but began to ebb as the creatures finally organized a
defense about them.
The goblins came at them in a semicircular formation, but the integrity of
the monstrous line was compromised quickly, for Belli'mar Juraviel, perched on a
branch some distance away, plucked at them with his tiny but deadly bow.
At the same time, Paulson and Chipmunk caught up to their fighting
companions, the small man leading his way in with a line of hurled daggers.
"On me, back!" the centaur roared to Elbryan. "We'll get to the
prisoners!"
But not in time, Elbryan thought, looking past the goblin ranks to the
pitiful group. He prayed that Pony and Avelyn would do their part well, and
wondered if his rage had betrayed them all.
* * *
Avelyn could hardly see the goblin ranks and knew not at all which creature was
in charge. As soon as Pony was away, the monk searched for some hiding spot for
his bulky frame, but realized that he had little time to spare. He settled for a
clump of birch trees, throwing his body into their midst as he threw his mind
into the hematite he tightly clutched. He was into his spirit-walking, already
rushing fast away, before his great bulk ever settled amid the tangled branches.
The monk's spirit flew past Juraviel, the sensitive elf taking note,
though the ghostly form was surely invisible. He swept past Paulson and
Chipmunk, past Bradwarden and Elbryan, past the front ranks of goblins, until he
came to the miserable prisoners and the monstrous guards about them. One in
particular was calling out commands, and Avelyn's spirit made a straight line to
that body, pushed into the physical form, and battled for control.
 Possession was never easily accomplished, a difficult and dangerous
practice, but no one in all the world could summon the powers of the stones as
thoroughly as Avelyn Desbris, and the monk was desperate now, for the safety of
others and not for himself.
He ejected the goblin's spirit almost immediately and continued barking
out commands, but these did not concern the prisoners at all. "Flee!" he yelled
to his charges. "Run to the trees, into the forest. Run away! Run away!"
Many goblins did just that, more than eager to be gone since the furious
ranger and the powerful centaur were crushing through their ranks.
Others, though, meant to get their taste of human blood before they left.
Pony saw them, two of them, ruining from the area of the fight but angling
their course and their weapons to pound the prisoners as they passed. The
woman's concentration was taxed to its limit as she tried to fall into her other
stone while maintaining the weightlessness of the malachite, all the while,
keeping her eyes on the monsters, measuring their progress.
She was opt of time. Her mind let go of the malachite and she dropped the
ten feet to the ground, landing right between the surprised goblins.
They screamed, Pony screamed, and they spun about bringing their weapons to
bear, as the woman grabbed their shoulders.
Pony was quicker, falling into the stone, the graphite.
There came a sharp crack, a sudden black flash; and the two goblins fell
to the ground, twitching violently as they died.
"Forget the woman!" Avelyn the goblin chief cried to another monster that
was swinging about to bear down on Pony, and the monk rushed to intercept. He
tried something new then, connecting his mind back to his physical body and
bringing in new magic from a second stone that his own form clutched, as he
went.
"Kill humans!" the goblin howled in Avelyn's face, but the monk reached up
with an arm that more resembled that of a tiger than of a human or a goblin. He
took away the creature's protest as he took away its face.
"Ho, ho, what!" the monk-turned-goblin roared, eyeing the transformed arm.
"It worked!"
Indeed it had; Avelyn had reached out across the distance, had connected
with his own physical being while holding control of the goblin's form. But the
strain had been great, too great, and the monk felt himself losing control
immediately, his spirit soaring back past the fighting, back to the birch trees.
In his last effort of will, right before he lost consciousness, the monk reached
back out to the goblin's body, and as the creature became aware of its physical
form once more, it found its own arm -- or at least an arm that was connected to
its body -- moving up to claw viciously at its own face.
The surprised, confused creature stumbled backward, its other, normal
appendage grabbing at its torn face. Surprise turned to horror, to agony, as it
stumbled near Pony, and the woman drove
her sword into its back, its tip poking right through the goblin's chest.
Pony then turned her attention to the prisoners, bidding them to run off,
out of harm's way. Most of the men and a few women would not go, however.
Wearing masks of grief, no doubt for loved ones this monstrous band had slain,
they charged the other way, into those monsters battling Elbryan and the others,
fighting with weapons they snatched from goblin dead, with sticks or rocks found
on the ground, or with their bare hands.
It was over in a matter of minutes, with more than a score of goblins
lying dead, the rest running, scattering into the forest. Several humans had
been injured, as had Bradwarden -- though the tough centaur thought little of
his cuts and bruises -- and Avelyn returned to them shortly, on unsteady legs,
carrying the worst headache the monk had ever known. Still, without complaint,
the good monk used his hematite once more, this time to lessen the wounds of the
injured.
 Elbryan gathered up Paulson and Chipmunk and called to Juraviel, the four
moving out from the gathering to ensure the goblins were not rallying for any
counterattack.
In more than an hour of searching, the foursome found only a pair of
goblins hiding in one spot, and another running stupidly in circles.
So the ambush had worked, near to perfection, and the prisoners were free,
but that left the ranger with a new dilemma and a new and unasked for
responsibility.

"Belster is no doubt many miles to the south by now," Avelyn reasoned, "out of
our leach. Even if I use the stones to contact him, we'll not easily get to him
and hand off our new friends."
"They are, a tough lot," Pony added hopefully, "but inexperienced with
goblins and the like."
Paulson gave her a sidelong, incredulous glance.
"With these goblins, at least," the woman corrected. "They've not battled
the army of the dactyl before."
Paulson conceded that point,
"It would take us weeks to prepare them correctly, that they might have a
chance of escaping on their own," the woman finished.
Elbryan absorbed all their words, sifted through their suggestions. After
a moment, his gaze settled on Paulson and Chipmunk.
The big man understood that gaze well; Elbryan had never asked him and
Chipmunk to come along, had, in fact absolved them of all responsibilities. But
the ranger was about to place a new responsibility on the pair, Paulson
realized. He wanted Paulson and Chipmunk to shoulder the burden of the new
refugees and find a way to take them south. Paulson, full of anger at the loss
of his dear friend, did not want to abandon this quest and neither did Chipmunk,
but they would for the sake of the refugees. That realization struck the big man
profoundly; for the first time in many years; he felt like a part of something
larger, than himself, a cohesive circle of comrades, of friends.
"There is another choice before us," Belli'mar Juraviel said from the low
branches of a nearby tree. The elf had been keeping a low profile, not wanting
to frighten the skittish refugees. The sight of Bradwarden had unnerved the folk
almost as much as had the sight of the goblins, and the elf thought it better to
hit them with one surprise at a time.
The group looked up to the elf, resting easily, his legs crossed at the
ankles, feet dangling a few. yards above their heads.
"There is a place where they might know shelter, not so far from here,"
the elf remarked.
Hopeful nods came from every head, except for Elbryan. Juraviel's tone
intimated something more profound to the ranger, that not only was there a mere
place for shelter, but a very special place indeed. Elbryan remembered the run
that had brought him to Dundalis, Nightbird's first journey. He had crossed the
Moorlands, corning from the west. Now he and his troop were once again west of
the Moorlands, though miles farther north.
"We can get them there, then, and continue on our way," Pony reasoned.
"Not we," Juraviel, replied, "but I alone. This place is not so far, but
not so close, a week's march, perhaps."
"In a week, we could bring them almost all the way back to Dundalis,"
Bradwarden reasoned.
"To what end?" asked the elf. "No one remains, to help them there, and all
that area is full of monsters. The place I speak of holds many allies, and there
are no monsters, of that I am sure."
"You speak of Andur'Blough Inninness," Elbryan reasoned, and when the elf
didn't immediately deny it, the ranger knew that his guess was correct. "But
will your Lady accept so many humans into the elven home? The place is secret,
its borders closed and well hidden."
"The times are not normal," Juraviel replied. "Lady Dasslerond gave a
score of us leave to join in your struggles, to go out and take stock of the
happenings in the wider world. She will not refuse entry to the humans, not now,
with darkness all about them." The elf gave a smile. "Oh, do not doubt that we
shall put enchantments over them, a bit of boggle in their meals, perhaps, to
keep them disoriented that our paths remain hidden when they are turned out into
the wider world once more."
"We should all go," reasoned Pony, who desperately wanted to view the
elven home, who could sit for hours and hours to listen to Elbryan's tales of
the magical place.
Elbryan, too, was tempted, would have loved to see Andur'Blough Inninness
again, especially now, to bolster his resolve before he completed this all-
important, perilous journey. The ranger knew better, though. "Every day we spend
moving to the south, and every day it takes us to get back even to this spot:
our enemies strike deeper into our homeland and more people die," he said
calmly.
"I shall take them alone," Juraviel announced. "As you recognized your
destiny, Brother Avelyn, so I recognize my own. You will introduce me to the
folk in the morning and I will lead them away to safety."
Elbryan looked long and hard at his winged friend. He wanted Juraviel
along on this journey, needed the elf's wisdom and courage to bolster his own.
But Juraviel was right; he alone could take the refugees to safety, and though
the quest to the Barbacan was paramount, the needs of so many innocents could
not be ignored.
In the morning came the second painful parting.
"So there, you are at long last!" Tuntun cried to Symphony when she
spotted the stallion trotting across, a field north of Weedy Meadow. Most of the
elves were long gone, some shadowing the human band that had gone to the south,
but most on the road back to Andur'Blough Inninness. Tuntun and a couple of
others had remained in the area, though, to continue their survey of the
invading army.
This wasn't the place where Tuntun wanted to be.
The elf had been searching for Symphony, her desires formulating into a
definite plan.
She approached the horse tentatively, but soon found that she could indeed
connect with the stallion. The turquoise was tuned to Elbryan, but Tuntun, with
her elvish blood, could make some sense of it, could fathom the horse's greatest
desires, at least, if, not his actual thoughts.
Symphony was apparently in complete agreement with her.
Tuntun had little trouble getting the great stallion to accept her, and
Symphony leaped away as soon as the elf climbed atop him, running fast for the
north and west.

CHAPTER 46
The Fiend's Fiend

He couldn't feel the stone beneath his feet, and he hated that fact of his
existence more than anything else in all the world, more even than he hated this
monster, this demon, his savior. For all the benefits of this wraithlike
existence, Quintall missed the tangible sensations of his mortal form, the feel
of grass or stone on his bare feet, the smell of dinner cooking, of brine when
he looked out over All Saints Bay, the taste of shellfish or of the exotic herbs
the Windrunner had taken on at Jacintha.
 He stood now, or rather floated, in the dactyl's great columned hall at
Aida before the obsidian throne and the monstrosity that was his god.
"We will be in Palmaris by midsummer,"' Bestesbulzibar explained, coming
forward in his seat, the rough folds of its red hide shining in the orange glow
of the lava rivers, pouring down through the walls and onto the floor at either
side of the wide dais. "And Ursal shall be besieged when the season turns to
autumn. Then the winter snows will not work against us as we roll on to the
south, to Entel and the mountain range that separates the kingdoms."
"And will we stop there?" the spirit asked.
"Stop?" scoffed the dactyl. "We will entreaty with Behren's many
chieftains; then find ways to use them against one another, and finally, when
they do not expect war, we will sweep south. And all the world will be mine. Let
humanity know its age of darkness."
Quintall couldn't disagree with the dactyl's reasoning. There were minor
points untouched, to be sure. Alpinador, despite the brutal border raids and the
subsequent, determined march to the coast, remained intact, but the northern
kingdom was not an organized place and was not populous enough to pose any real
threat.
"It is an age well earned," Bestesbulzibar said. "Your kin have only
themselves to blame for the coming storm; their own weakness opened the way."
The demon waved its wings and a rush of hot air passed through Quintall, a
sensation the spirit somehow felt. And with that blow, Quintall remembered.
He remembered in incredible detail: all that he had been, all the promises
of his mortal life. He remembered St.-Mere-Abelle, the journey to Pimaninicuit.
He remembered Avelyn, damned Avelyn, and the rivalry. He heard again Avelyn's
voice, his screams of protest when the Windrunner had been sunk, a voice
touched, Quintall now knew, by God. He remembered chasing the rogue monk, the
tales in town after town of the mad friar and his words of warning, words that
rang all too true now.
Quintall looked at his demon master; he knew the dactyl had shown him his
mortal memories only to torment him. Since he had come to Aida, since the moment
of his mortal death when the hematite broach had somehow transported his spirit
to Bestesbulzibar Quintall had remembered only that last encounter and not the
path that had led him to Avelyn and the monk's powerful friends.
But now -- now he remembered. Everything. And he knew that he was a doomed
thing, knew the dactyl's claims were true, that Avelyn's warnings were true. The
weakness of mankind, the impiety of. the Abellican Church, the murders of the
Windrunner's crew, his own jealousy of Brother Avelyn -- all these things had
fed the demon dactyl, had awakened the darkness that now encroached upon the
world.
Quintall loathed Bestesbulzibar but realized he was powerless against the
fiend, realized he had fallen to the dactyl and that he could not escape.
Bestesbulzibar extended its hand palm down and telepathically demanded
that Quintall pay homage.
The doomed spirit took the hand and kissed it.
There could be no redemption.
And Quintall knew the demon read his every thought, that his hopelessness
only made the creature something more.
"You are useful to me," Bestesbulzibar said suddenly, "as you visit the
dreams of men such as the fool Yuganick, as you walk unnoticed among our
enemies. But I can do all that, Quintall."
The dactyl paused, and Quintall, in light of the last statement, expected
that his time was at its end, that he would be blasted out of existence or
thrown into a bottomless pit of eternal torment.
"I need more from you," the dactyl decided. Bestesbulzibar looked from
Quintall to one of the lava rivers. "Yes," the creature muttered, talking more
to itself than to the ghost. It moved across the dais, dipped one arm into the
molten flow, then looked back at Quintall.
"Yes," the dactyl said again. "Do you not long to feel the sensations of
the corporeal world once more?"
Quintall did indeed.
"I can do that, my stooge. I can give you life, real life, once more."
Quintall felt his spirit drifting toward the creature, though it was
surely an unconscious movement.
"I can make you something greater," the demon whispered, and again the
great black wings beat softly and a gust of hot wind passed through the spirit.
After the gust, the heat remained.
The heat remained, and Quintall understood he was feeling the warmth of
the lava!
Bestesbulzibar began a long, slow chant in a language the spirit did not
understand, a guttural, cracking language of clicks and sounds that could only
be equated with an old man clearing his phlegm-filled throat. Bestesbulzibar
then spat upon Quintall, and the goo did not pass through the spirit, but struck
him and stuck to him. Bestesbulzibar repeated the action over and over until
Quintall was thoroughly slimed, then the fiend grabbed the spirit and, as
Quintall screamed out in instinctive protest, plunged Quintall into the lava.
All the world was blackness, was searing heat and unbearable agony, and
Quintall knew no more.

He awoke later, much later, though he was unaware of the passage of time.
He was in the throne room still, standing, not floating, upon the solid floor.
He was a creature of lava; shaped like a man, shaped roughly as he had
once been with arms and legs, rock hard torso and head, and joints somehow
fluid, molten and glowing bright orange but not dripping away. He felt awkward,
but he felt! He looked on in amazement as he opened and closed his black,
orange-striped hand, understood the unearthly strength in that grip, and knew he
could crush a stone -- or the head of an enemy.
The head of Avelyn.
Bestesbulzibar's wicked laughter drew Quintall from his contemplations.
"Are you pleased?" the demon asked.
Quintall did not know how to answer. He began to speak, but the sound of
his own voice, of a voice that resonated like a rock slide, frightened him.
"You will grow accustomed to your new body, my stooge, my general," the
dactyl teased, "my assassin. No giant could stand before you, and no man. When
Palmaris falls, you will lead my army into the city, and you will take the seat
of Honce-the-Bear's deposed King when Ursal is mine."
His power, sheer strength, was dizzying, overwhelming. Images of conquest
flooded Quintall's every thought. He felt he could destroy Palmaris all. by
himself, that no weapon, that no man, could possibly stand before him.
"Train your new body," Bestesbulzibar instructed. "Feel its powers and
limitations and apply all that you once learned of the martial arts to this
form. You area my general now, and my assassin. Let all men, let all creatures
of Corona, tremble before you."
The fiend ended with yet another hideous laugh, but this time, Quintall
heard his own grating voice joining in.
"The war goes well, my pet," the dactyl went on. "While you were asleep,
your spirit binding to this gift I gave you, I viewed the southland, the
unstoppable progress. Palmaris falls before midsummer, I say, and another
powrie force sails to join us, makes fast for the Broken Coast. One army will
march south, the other west, inland, until they join at the very gates of Ursal!
Who will stand before them? The feeble King of Honce-the-Bear?"
"I know nothing of kings," Quintall replied.
 "But you do!" the dactyl teased. "You know of your Father Abbot, the
doddering old fool, and even he is a more worthy foe than the jester who sits on
the throne of Honce-the-Bear. Who will stand before the beast then?"
The answer seemed obvious to fallen Quintall. No one would stand before
the beast, before his master, before his god. Suddenly, the man-turned-spirit-
turned-lava monster wanted desperately to smash through the gates of Ursal, to
take his place on the throne of Honce-the-Bear.
Even more than that, Quintall wanted to visit St.-Mere-Abelle, to face
Father Abbot Markwart and Master Jojonah, to make them grovel at his stony feet
and then step upon them and squash them, grind them to death. They had used him,
he understood now, all too clearly. They had used him in' sending him to
Pimaninicuit, and then again when they turned him into something less than
human, when they, turned him into Brother Justice, the instrument of their
anger. So now Bestesbulzibar had done the same thing, but in Quintall's
estimation, the demon dactyl was by far the worthier master.
"You will watch over Aida and serve in my absence," Bestesbulzibar
announced.
Quintall knew better than to question the beast at all.
That very night, the demon swept out of its mountain home, flying fast to
the south to its minions. In mere hours, Bestesbulzibar covered the hundreds of
miles to the base at Dundalis, where it found a rattled Gothra of the goblins
and Maiyer Dek of the fomorian giants arguing fiercely.
How their words caught in their throats, how all the camp about them fell
to stunned silence, when the dactyl dropped between them, when the absolute
darkness fell from the night sky.
"Tell me!" the dactyl demanded, and both started talking at once, and both
were silenced by a mere threatening glare. Bestesbulzibar looked at Maiyer Dek
squarely.
"Our camps swell to bursting," the giant chieftain explained, even its
thunderous voice seeming meek before the demon. "More should be sent south to
face the armies of our enemy!"
The demon's eyes flared with fire. Its head snapped about, an accusing
glare falling over the trembling goblin.
"Ulg Tik'narn cannot be found," Gothra stated. "Likely he is dead."
"So?" The demon snorted, for there seemed no shortage of potential
replacements.
"The region is not secured," the goblin went on. "Nightbird owns the
forest."
"He is a thorn!" Maiyer Dek roared. "And a charging giant does not stop to
pluck a thorn!"
"A thorn that interrupts supply --' Gothra began, but he was cut short by
the bloodcurdling shriek of the demon dactyl.
"Enough!" the beast thundered. "You mean to stall our thousands for the
sake of this one man, this Nightbird?"
"Each area must be secured in t-turn," the goblin stuttered, realizing
that this discussion was not going very well. Goblins by nature were
conservative in their warfare tactics, securing territories one by one, then
methodically moving along, rarely attacking unless complete victory could be
assured.
Bestesbulzibar had little patience with that.
"I demand Palmaris, yet you hold back thousands to retain this pitiful
village?" the dactyl roared.
"No," Gothra protested. The goblin general wanted to explain its
reasoning, wanted to make its master see that supply lines might be interrupted,
equipment and needed reinforcements destroyed or delayed, and that the result in
the south, at Palmaris's very gate, perhaps, could be disastrous.
 Gothra, no fool -- at least by goblin standards -- wanted to argue his
point in logical, rational terms, but all that came from the goblin's mouth was
an agonized scream as Bestesbulzibar reached out with one hand, clamping the
goblin's held and pulling Gothra in. Smiling wickedly, Bestesbulzibar lifted its
other hand so that all could see, then extended one finger, and with a thought,
lengthened the fingernail into a terrible claw. A sudden, impossibly long swipe
brought a shriek from Gothra, and the demon shoved the goblin back.
Gothra stared down at the line of blood running from forehead to crotch,
then looked back at the demon.
Bestesbulzibar's hand reached out and clenched the air, and the demon's
magic grabbed at Gothra -- or at least at the goblin's skin, pulling it from
the goblin's body as completely as if the demon were helping Gothra out of
clothing. The fleshless thing fell quivering, dying, to the ground.
Not a sound came from about the beast as, clothing and all, the dactyl
devoured the torn skin of Gothra.
"Who was Ulg Tik'narn's second?" Bestesbulzibar asked.
There came no immediate reply, but then one trembling powrie was pushed
forward from the ranks to stand before the master.
"Your name?"
"Kos-" the dwarf's voice trailed off, lost in the terrified gasps.
"He is Kos-kosio Begulne,-" Maiyer Dek offered.
"And where did Kos-kosio Begulne stand on this issue?" the dactyl asked.
Maiyer Dek smiled confidently. "He wished to move south," the giant lied,
for Maiyer Dek liked the thought of Kos-kosio, not a strong personality, in
command of the powrie forces. "Or at least to strike hard and quickly at the
petty human raiders, that the issue be settled and the greater road be open."
The demon nodded, seeming pleased, and Kos-kosio stood a bit straighter.
"You are the powrie commander now, Kos-kosio Begulne," Bestesbulzibar
announced. "And you and Maiyer Dek shall share the leadership of the goblins
until a suitable replacement for Gothra can be found." Bestesbulzibar shared his
glowering visage with all gathered near. "You two I charge with delivering
Palmaris on the Masur Delaval by midsummer's eve. I will see you at the gates of
Palmaris, my generals, and if I find need to see you before those gates are
mine, then look upon Gothra's fate as your own!"
With a flourish, a thunderous beating of wings, and a bit of magic to make
the flames of the main fire in the camp leap high into the night, the demon
dactyl took wing, flying fast for the west to view the other occupied villages,
to see its massing might spread out beneath it. Satisfied as End-o'-the-World
was left behind, the beast turned northward, thinking to swoop low over the
newest caravan plodding south, to encourage its minions and to strike fear in
their hearts all at once.
But something else caught the beast's attention, some sensation, some
presence the dactyl had not felt in many centuries. Lower went the demon, and
slower, turning tight circles, sharp eyes scouring the terrain, keen ears tuning
to every sound.
There was an elf about, Bestesbulzibar knew. One of the Touel'alfar, the
dactyl demon's most ancient and hated of enemies.

CHAPTER 47
One Harmony

The night was still, and undeniably beautiful. Every so often a cloud would rush
overhead, pushed by southwestern breezes, but for the most part the stars shone
crisp and clear, and die smell of spring was everywhere, the smell of new life.
It was a lie, Elbryan knew, all of it. The smell of new life would fast
give way to the smell of goblins, powries, and giants, and the stench of death.
All this serenity would be shattered under the thunderous march of the black
horde, the crack of powrie whip, the rolling war engines.
It was a cruel lie: the quiet, the serenity, the spring breeze.
A movement to the side caught the wary ranger's attention, but he did not
go for his weapon, recognizing the light, graceful step and the smell -- like a
field of distant flowers, the gentle fragrance carried on soft breezes -- of the
woman so dear to him. Pony came through the brush lightly, wearing only a soft
silken nightshirt that didn't reach her knees. Her hair was down now, loose and
wild, and it framed her fair face in a sensual manner, brushing her cheeks, one
thick lock wrapped down and about her chin, that sent Elbryan's heart pumping.
She looked at the man and smiled, then crossed her arms to ward the breeze
and turned, staring up at the night canopy.
"How could I have brought you out here?" the ranger said to her, moving up
behind her and touching her gently on the shoulder.
Pony bent her head atop that hand and shifted backward, leaning against
Elbryan. "How might you have stopped me?" she asked.
The ranger chuckled softly and kissed the woman's hair, wrapping his
strong arms about her. How indeed? he wondered, marveling, as always, at Pony's
free spirit. He could not truly love Pony, he knew, could not love who she was,
if he meant to control her, for surely any attempt to harness Pony would defeat
the very free spirit that Elbryan so adored. She was his in heart, but her own
in will, and the ranger could not have stopped her from coming along, short of
knocking her unconscious and tying her in a cave!
The woman turned within Elbryan's grasp, her soft face just below his,
looking up at him.
Elbryan stared at her for a long, silent moment. An image of her lying
dead at the end of a goblin spear came to him and he looked away suddenly,
looked up at the stars, and wondered how he would live, what point there would
be in going on with his life, if anything happened to Pony.
He felt her hand brushing against his cheek, and then the touch grew more
firm as Pony turned his face back to look into her own. "We are each of us in
danger," she reminded him. "And I might die, as Elbryan might die."
"Do not even utter such horrors."
"Possibilities," Pony corrected; "chances that we each took of our own
volition, chances borne in duty. I would not want to live in the world that will
be if the dactyl is not destroyed; rather that I had died fighting the fiend in
the faraway Barbacan . . ." Her voice trailed off and she rose to her tiptoes,
her lips brushing Elbryan's in a gentle kiss. "Rather that I died beside my
friend, my love."
He started to look away again, unable to come to terms with that distinct
possibility, but Pony's hand caught his chin firmly, forcefully, and turned him
back to face her, all gentleness suddenly gone from her fair features.
"I am a warrior," the woman declared. "I have fought all of my life, since
the day I wandered the road from destroyed Dundalis. I see my duty as no less
than your own."
"Of course not," Elbryan quickly agreed.
"And if I am to die, then let it be in battle," Pony said through gritted
teeth: "Let it be against the demon dactyl, delivering Avelyn, that the foul
beast might be destroyed. I am a warrior, my love. Do not begrudge me a fitting
end!"
"I would rather that your end and my own be together a hundred years
hence," Elbryan replied, a helpless smile finding its way across his face.
Pony reached up to touch that smile and felt the sharp stubble of the
ranger's beard, several days grown. "Ah, but my love," she said quietly, "put
that fine elvish blade of yours to use on that beard, else I fear my face will
glow from your scraping."
 "More than your face, my love," Elbryan teased, and he lifted Pony up
before him, biting her softly just under the chin, then turning his face so that
his beard rubbed against her neck.
She slid back down, keeping tight to him, until their eyes met, and
suddenly the play was gone from their smiles, all teasing lost in sudden
intensity, in the knowledge that their time together might be nearing a very
brutal end. Pony kissed him then, hard and passionately, her hands moving to
grab tightly at his thick hair, to pull him even closer, though there was
already no space between them.
Elbryan wrapped her even more tightly, squeezing her in his ,powerful
grasp. One arm slipped down to the back of her bare leg, then up under the
nightshirt, over the smooth skin of her buttocks, gently up her back, bracing
her as Elbryan slowly shifted her down to the ground.

"Potion," Avelyn argued.

Bradwarden snorted. "Potion o' dizziness, then. What fool brewed such a
magic as that? A drink to set ye on the ground, when a club might do a better
job!"
"Potion of courage!" Avelyn protested, taking a deep swig, then wiping his
forearm across his face.
"Potion o' hiding," Bradwarden said seriously, changing the tone.
Avelyn stared hard at the centaur.
"Oh, I been known to have me drinks," the centaur said. "'Tis boggle I'm
favoring, and not a potion in all the world'll kick ye harder than that. But I'm
drinking at times for celebrating, me friend, at the solstice and the equinox,
and not for hiding."
The accusation hit. the monk hard, especially considering the source.
Avelyn had grown quite close to Bradwarden over the first weeks of their
journey, a bond more of respect than friendship. Now there was no mistaking the
somber, accusing tone of the normally jovial centaur; Bradwarden did not approve
of the monk's little flask.
"Perhaps you simply do not have as much to hide from," the monk said
quietly, defiantly lifting the flask to his lips.
He didn't drink, though, not then, held back by an unrelenting stare.
"The more ye hide, the more ye need to hide," Bradwarden replied. "Ye look
at me, Brother Avelyn. Ye look into me eyes to know that no lie comes from me
lips."
Avelyn lowered the flask and stared hard at Bradwarden.
"Ye did no wrong in taking the stones," the centaur said.
"What foolishness is that?" the monk protested.
"Ah, but ye cannot hide from me, Avelyn Des s" Bradwarden said without
hesitation, his confidence only bolstered by the monk's too loud protestation.
"Ye're not afraid of yer kinfolk, not the monks, not any other Brother Justice
that might come hunting ye. No, me friend, ye're afraid o' Avelyn, of what ye
did and of yer eternal soul. Did ye stain it, then?"
"You know nothing."
"Ho, ho, what!" the centaur boomed in a fair imitation of Avelyn. "I know
the ways o' men, the ways o' Avelyn. I know that yer drinking yer `potions o'
courage' is no more than yer hiding from yer own past, from decisions ye made --
and good ones at that! Hear me now, because I would not lie to ye, I'd have no
reason to lie to ye: ye did right in running, in taking the stones, even in
killing the man who meant to kill yerself. Ye did what ye had to do, me friend,
and so let go yer guilt, I say, and see better the road ahead. Ye said ye knew
yer destiny, and I'm believing in that destiny, else I'd not have come. Ye're
meant to face the dactyl, I say, to destroy the beast, and so ye will, but only
if yer mind's clear, and only if yer heart's clear."
 The words, coming from so mysterious, so wise, and aged a creature, hit
Avelyn profoundly. He looked back at his flask and saw it for the first time as
an enemy, a sign of weakness.
"Ye're not for needing yer potion," Bradwarden said. "Aye, but when ye
beat the dactyl, then I'll take ye out for a bit o' boggle, and ye'll know what
it means to see the world turn!" He reached out and grabbed Avelyn's wrist,
pulling the flask further from the man, and locking gazes. "Avelyn needs not to
hide from Avelyn," he said in all seriousness, and the monk, after a pause,
nodded slowly.
"From the dactyl, now!" Bradwarden said suddenly, satisfied that he had
gotten his point through. "Now, ye're wanting to hide from the dactyl until the
time's right, but ye'll find yer flask a bit small for that!"
Avelyn said nothing, just nodded again. He was amazed that Bradwarden had
so seen through him, had looked so clearly into his heart and soul, and had
recognized the taint of guilt there. This drink that he always kept handy was no
potion of courage but an admission of cowardice, a means for hiding from his own
past.
Avelyn continued to stare at Bradwarden, and smiled as the centaur smiled,
as the monk tossed the flask into the brush.
Now, finally, Avelyn could face his destiny with no regrets for the path
that had led him to this place.
The centaur took up his pipes then and softly played, for such was the
magic of Bradwarden's song that no goblin, no monster, no human, no animal even,
could possibly discern its source in the forest night. His tune, mournful and
hopeful all at once, calmed Avelyn and bolstered his resolve. It floated through
the trees to caress the lovers, and further out to where Paulson and Chipmunk
kept a watchful eye on the forest night.
And thus the group was bound by Bradwarden's song, one band, one purpose,
one harmony.

The quiet night brought no such rest for Tuntun and Symphony. The elf
watched the stallion closely to see if he was tiring, but the great horse ran on
and on, slipping through the leafy shadows like the passage of Sheila herself,
running to the horizon and beyond.
They had a quest, these two, every bit as vital to them as the hunt for
the dactyl was to the seven who had left before them. For Tuntun, the sting of
being left out of that all-important journey had not diminished, and no logical
arguments could change the way the elf felt about it. Tuntun's stake in
destroying the dactyl was no less than Juraviel's or that of any other elf or
human. But it was more than that, the elf knew, and she had to admit it to
herself, for it was her heart and not her mind that had forced her out here.
Tuntun had to rush along, had to chase the group, in part because Belli'mar
Juraviel -- her closest friend despite their constant squabbling -- was among
them, but also in part because Nightbird led that troop. The elf could no longer
deny her feelings for the ranger. She had played an important role in getting
Elbryan to this point and, as a mother clings to her child, Tuntun could not
bear to let him go off without her.
Yes, it as Nightbird more than anything else that had the sprite riding
hard through the forest night. It was the man she had trained, the man she had
grown to love. She trusted in the ranger -- never had she seen Elbryan's better
-- but even so, she would stand beside him in this, his darkest of hours, in
this, his pinnacle of glory.
The elf bent her head low over Symphony's flying mane and bade the horse
to run on, and Symphony, as connected to the ranger as she, needed no
encouragement and no outward guidance.
CHAPTER 48
Enemies Ancient
"You and your friends saved us all, I do not dispute," Jingo Gregor said,
his voice cracking from the strain of the last few weeks, the overwhelming
surprises and horrors. "Yet are we to walk willingly to a place of enchantment?"
He looked pleadingly at the boughs, at the rarely seen guide who had led him and
his companions through a trackless region, heading south and with towering
mountains now in sight.
"Better that than to face the goblin hordes," Belli'mar Juraviel answered.
"I offer refuge, a haven as safe as any place in all the world. Arid the offer
is not given lightly, I assure you, Master Jingo Gregor. You are as strange to
the Touel'alfar as are we to you, and the valley that is home to my people is
not open to humans. Yet I take you there, for if I do not, then surely you and
all your companions will perish."
"I am not ungrateful, good Juraviel," Jingo Gregor replied.
"Just wary," Juraviel finished for him, moving down the tree so that the
man could see him clearly, one of the few views the elf had allowed to any of
the humans. "And well you should be, given the tragedies that have come to you
and your clan. But I am not your enemy."
"That much has been proven," Jingo agreed.
"Then rest easy, for Andur'Blough Inninness is not so far," Juraviel said
to him. "Consider yourself blessed to look upon the elven valley of mists."
There was an unconscious edge to that last statement, reflecting Juraviel's own
doubts about this decision to take humans to the secret valley. True, Elbryan
had been taken in and trained; true, Lady Dasslerond had allowed Juraviel,
Tuntun, and the others to go out to find the ranger and help him with his fight.
But to take humans to Andur'Blough Inninness without the express permission of
Lady Dasslerond was indeed a stretch of the Lady's compassion, and Juraviel was
not certain that the troop wouldn't simply be turned away; perhaps the paths
into the misty valley would be altered and hidden even from Juraviel. Lady
Dasslerond was merciful, the elf knew, but she was, above that, pragmatic and
protective of her realm. The welfare of the Touel'alfar she placed above all
else, perhaps even above the lives of a score of unfortunate human refugees.
Despite the hints of doubt in Juraviel's tone, Jingo Gregor seemed
satisfied with the words -- a speech Juraviel had offered to the man several
times over the last few days. Juraviel held nothing but sympathy for this ragged
group, many of whom had lost loved ones in the goblin raids upon their homes,
and most of whom had been tortured and violated by the wretched creatures. The
elf would offer those comforting words to any and all, as often as they needed
to hear them, reassuring the poor folk even though he himself wasn't so certain
of the outcome.
Jingo Gregor moved off then, back to the warmth of the campfire and his
eighteen companions. Juraviel, too, moved back toward the campfire, tightening
his perimeter watch, though the humans had no idea of the elf's movements, so
silent was he as he crossed the higher boughs of the budding trees.
The fire burned low -- it had never been truly high, for Juraviel opted
for caution, though he was fairly certain there were no monsters in the area, no
organized groups anyway. Now the fire was no more than embers, their orange glow
casting faint illumination over the resting forms of the humans, the light
seeming appropriate for the rhythmic breathing of the sleeping folk.
Juraviel, too, was near to sleep, the elf comfortably nestled in the V of
a high branch. He should have been watching the ground, he knew, but in accord
with the wistful nature of his kind, his eyes kept lifting skyward to the stars
and the mysteries.
And then to something else, something darker and more sinister, moving
swiftly across the sky, heading for the camp, for Juraviel. The elf sensed the
presence of the demon dactyl as surely as the dactyl sensed him, felt the
awfulness, the sheerest of evil, the coldest of deathly chill.
With great effort, Juraviel pulled his thoughts from the night sky and the
approach. of doom and slipped quickly, down, branch to branch, finally dropping
right in the middle of the camp. He ran about, kicking at feet, whispering
harshly, until all the humans were roused.
"Be gone!" the elf commanded. "Flee to the forest in groups of five and four,
each in a direction of your own!"
Questions came at him, and at the stupefied leaders of the group, but
Juraviel did not relent. "Tarry not!" the elf warned "For death comes on wing!
Be gone to the forest!"
The dactyl was close, so close! The humans scrambled, trying to gather
some things, trying to put on boots, at least, as they stumbled and were pulled
to the darkness of the forest night.
Juraviel remained at the glowing fire pit until all had gone, his eyes
ever skyward, looking for the blackest of forms.
He felt it, he saw it, the dactyl swooping down from on high, rushing past
the tangle of branches with hardly a care, spinning at the last moment, halting
its descent to land lightly on the ground opposite the diminutive elf.
Juraviel drew out his slender sword but wondered what use it might be
against the horrific demon. He prayed that all the folk would rush back in at
the monster and join in his fight, but it was a wish that the elf had to
dismiss, knowing that if the folk did come to his aid, they would all perish
with him.
"Touel'alfar," the demon dactyl remarked in its mighty voice. "Not many
are your kind. Not so strong, not so strong."
"Be gone from this place, demon," Juraviel responded in as firm a voice as
he could muster. "You have no hold over me, no claim to my heart or my soul. I
am the master here, and I reject you and your lies!"
The dactyl laughed at him, mocking his words and his courage, making him
feel like an insignificant thing. "Why do you believe that I want claim to such
worthless things as your heart and soul, elf ?" the demon growled. "Your heart,
perhaps," Bestesbulzibar teased, "that I might feast upon it, savoring the sweet
blood of a Touel'alfar."
As he spoke, Bestesbulzibar slowly began to circle the fire, and Juraviel
moved as well, keeping the embers between him and the demon -- though when he
thought about it, the elf realized that the flames, were they blazing high,
would prove no barrier at all to the creature of the fiery pits of the
underworld.
"Why are you out, Touel'alfar?" Bestesbulzibar asked. "Why are you away
from your valley -- yes, I know of your valley. I have seen many things since I
have awakened, foolish elf, and I know that your kind is diminished greatly,
that your world is smaller now, a mere canyon in a world that is grown too wide
and too human. So why are you away, elf? What is it that brings you so far from
home?"
"The darkness of the demon dactyl," Juraviel answered firmly. "Your shadow
has roused the Touel'alfar, foul beast, for you are not unknown to us."
"But what shall you do about Bestesbulzibar?" the dactyl roared suddenly,
and sudden, too, was the monster's rush, a quick burst right across the fire,
scattering embers in a blinding shower. Juraviel struck fast and hard with his
small sword, scoring a solid hit, but that hardly, slowed the great beast whose
armored hide held even the elvish blade at bay, whose clawed hand slapped the
sword from Juraviel's hand while the demon's other hand grabbed the elf by the
throat, lifting him easily up into the air.
"Oh," Bestesbulzibar moaned, as if in ecstasy. "I could tear it out, elf,"
the demon teased, running the claws of his free hand over Juraviel's tiny chest,
"and hold it up before your eyes, biting into its red flesh even as you watched
it beat its last."
"I do not fear you," Juraviel gasped with what little breath, remained to
him.
"Then you are a fool," Bestesbulzibar replied. "Do you know what comes
after life, elf ? Do you know what awaits you?" The demon laughed wickedly, ,
bellowing thunderously into the still night.
"No torment. . . " Juraviel gasped.
"For you are true of heart," Bestesbulzibar mimicked evilly, and then the
beast laughed again all the louder. "No torment," the fiend agreed. "Nothing! Do
you hear? Nothing, elf. There is no afterlife for a miserable wretch such as
thee! Only unknowing blackness. Savor your precious seconds; foolish elf. Beg me
to let you see one more dawn."
Juraviel said nothing. He tried hard to hold to his faith, whose precepts
insisted that a good life would indeed be rewarded in the afterlife. He
considered Garshan Inodiel, who was God to the elves, a god of justice and
promise, not unlike the god of the humans. But in the face of the darkness that
was Bestesbulzibar, Belli'mar Juraviel knew despair.
"But why are you out?" the demon asked again, giving a sidelong,
scrutinizing, glance at the elf. "And what do you know?"
Juraviel closed his eyes and said nothing. He expected to be tortured, to
have his limbs torn from his body, perhaps, until he confessed all he knew,
until he betrayed his friends who had gone to the Barbacan. No, I must not think
of that! the elf told himself firmly, and he turned his thoughts once more to
Garshan Inodiel, trying to blanket everything else under the serenity of his
God.
But then, in perhaps the worst torture of all' to the valiant Touel'alfar,
Juraviel felt the encroachment, felt the dark and cold presence of
Bestesbulzibar creeping into his thoughts, scouring his mind. He opened his eyes
in horror to see the demon's contorted features, flaming eyes closed as
Bestesbulzibar concentrated, using his magic to scour the elf's brain.
Juraviel fought valiantly, but he was overmatched. The more he tried not
to think of Elbryan and the others, the more they were revealed to
Bestesbulzibar. The demon would get what it wanted, he feared, would devour him,
and then would be off to devour his friends!
"Avelyn," Bestesbulzibar whispered.
"No!" Juraviel cried, and he kicked out with all his strength, his foot
slamming the demon right in the eye. The wriggling elf broke free and tumbled to
the ground. He tried to scamper away, but Bestesbulzibar towered over him,
looking down, laughing, teasing.
"You do not belong here," came a sudden, melodious voice, one that caught
and held the demon's attention. Both Bestesbulzibar and Juraviel turned to see
Lady Dasslerond come out of the brush, flanked by a dozen other elves, bows and
swords in hand.
"You live still!" the demon howled at the sight of the Lady of Caer'alfar,
an elf he had known centuries before.
"And you walk Corona again," the Lady replied, "and surely all of the
world weeps at the sight."
"Surely all of the world should!" Bestesbulzibar retorted. "Where is your
Terranen Dinoniel now, Dasslerond? Who will stand before me this time?" As he
spoke the last, he turned his ominous gaze upon Juraviel, and the poor elf shook
with the fear that he had given his friends away.
"Who, Dasslerond?" the demon insisted. "You or this pitiful elf that
cowers before me?" Bestesbulzibar looked all around at the encircling sprites,
and laughed more loudly than ever. "All of you together, then? Well done, I say;
and let us commence. Better for me that the nuisance of the Touel'alfar be done
with here and now!"
 "I'll not fight you," Lady Dasslerond replied coolly. "Not here." That
said, she held aloft a huge green gemstone, shining with power, its illumination
turning everything in the area a shade of green -- everything except
Bestesbulzibar, for the shadow of the demon could not be overcome by any light.
"What trick is this?"` the fiend protested. "What foolish --" The words
were lost in the demon's throat as all the world began to shift and change,
features blending together in a greenish mist and then growing clear again,
crystalline under the stars, bright and beautiful.
They were in Andur'Blough Inninness, -- all of them. Lady Dasslerond and
Juraviel, all the elves and the refugees, and Bestesbulzibar.
"What trick?" the fiend roared, suddenly angry, suddenly recognizing that
he should not be in this place, the very heart of elvish power.
"I invite you to my home, creature of shadow," Lady Dasslerond answered,
her voice edged with weariness from the tremendous exertion of power it had
taken to transport the group -- or, in effect, to change the very ground beneath
their feet. "You cannot defeat me here, not now."
The demon growled and considered the words, felt the strength of the Lady
and her fellows in this, their domain. "But soon," Bestesbulzibar promised.
The Lady held aloft the green gemstone, the heart of Andur'Blough
Inninness, now shining fiercely.
Bestesbulzibar's unearthly roar, one of pain and outrage, stole her
breath. "So you saved the pitiful elf and the humans he escorted," the fiend
sneered. "What good will it prove when all the world is mine?" Out came the
black wings and the demon dactyl lifted away to the hum of elvish bows, the
melodious tumult of elvish insults.
Any true joy felt by the Touel'alfar at the demon dactyl's retreat was
short-lived, though. By necessity, Lady Dasslerond had allowed Bestesbulzibar to
tread upon this, their most sacred and secret of places, and though the fiend
was correct, Bestesbulzibar could not yet face them all in Andur'Blough
Inninness, they had done nothing to diminish the demon.
Juraviel joined Lady Dasslerond as she stood over the spot from where
Bestesbulzibar had departed. The ground that had been under the fiend's clawed
feet was blackened and torn.
"A wound that will not heal," the Lady said despondently.
Juraviel knelt to better inspect the ground. He could smell the rot there:
the earth itself was tainted from the fiend's presence.
"A festering wound that will slowly spread," the Lady admitted. "We must
tend the ground about this spot vigilantly, for if ever we fail to counter with
our magic and our song the rot that is Bestesbulzibar, it will grow within our
valley."
Juraviel sighed and looked hopelessly at his Lady, his guilt obvious upon
his fair face.
"The dactyl grows strong," she said, not accusingly.
"I have failed."
Lady Dasslerond looked at him incredulously.
"The demon knows," Juraviel admitted. "The demon knows of Elbryan, of
Avelyn, and the plan."
"Then pity Elbryan," the Lady replied. "Or hold faith in Nightbird and in
Brother Avelyn, whose heart is true. They went north to do battle with
Bestesbulzibar, and so they shall."
Juraviel continued to look down upon the black scar that the demon had
left upon the ground of his precious home. Indeed, Bestesbulzibar had grown
strong to so taint the very land of Andur'Blough Inninness. Juraviel's Lady had
bid him to hold faith, and so he would, but the fear was obvious on his face as
he looked from the scar to the north.
"And now we have duties," Lady Dasslerond went on, speaking more loudly,
directing her words at all the elves. "All of us. We have unexpected guests who
must be comforted and then taken from our homeland to a place of their own kind,
a place of safety -- if any place in the world remains safe." She looked back
down at the black scar upon her beautiful valley. "We have much work to do," she
said softly.

CHAPTER 49
Hunted

"The terrain grows more wild, Uncle Mather, more fitting to the nature of our
enemies. The trees are older, never harvested by humans, and darker. The animals
do not fear us, do not respect our weapons or our cunning."
Elbryan rested back against the diagonal tree root in this impromptu room
of Oracle, digesting his own words. They were true enough; in this region so far
to the north of any known human settlements, all the world seemed somehow larger
and more imposing. The towering mountains that formed the dread Barbacan loomed
less than a day's march away, dominating the northern horizon, making the
travelers feel smaller still.
"It brings me mixed feelings," the ranger went on. "I fear for our safety
-- will I be able to protect my friends, not necessarily from the threats of our
enemy but from the simple truths of survival in this region? And yet, out here,
I am somewhat more free than ever, more true to the training the elves have
given me. There is no room for error in the far north, no margin of safety, and
that keeps me ever vigilant, on my guard, tingling with wariness. I am afraid,
and thus, I am alive."
Again, Elbryan sat back, smiling at the irony of it all. I am afraid, and
thus, I am alive.
"If given the opportunity, most people would choose a life of quiet
luxury," he said softly, "would choose to surround themselves with servants,
with concubines, even. That is their mistake, for out here, danger ever present,
I am ten times more alive than ever they could be. And with the. challenge that
is Pony and with the challenge I hope that I pose for her I am many times more
satisfied. It is, I believe, the difference between physical satisfaction and
true lovemaking, the difference between release and passion. I may die soon
following this course before me, but out here, at one with my spirit and my
nature, on the edges of catastrophe, I have lived many times more than most will
ever know.
"So I do not regret this journey that fate has laid before me, Uncle
Mather, nor do I regret that the others -- Bradwarden and Avelyn, Paulson and
Chipmunk, and most of all, Pony -- have been swept along this course. I pity
Belli'mar Juraviel, that he could not see it through, that duty turned his
path."
Elbryan put his chin in his paten, resting, thinking, and staring always
at the faint image at the corner of the mirror. It was true, all of it; he hated
the death and the suffering, of course, but he could not deny his excitement,
and the sense of righteousness, the belief that he was indeed making a
difference in the world.
He looked closely at Mather's image, seeking a smile of approval or a
frown that would indicate his feelings were not true but merely a contrived
defense against despair. He looked closely, and he saw a shadow beginning to
creep in across the glassy surface within the depths of the mirror. The ranger
sighed, thinking this a sign of disapproval, thinking that he might have fallen
into a trap of justifications, but gradually he came to understand that it was
not a cloud emanating from Mather or from his own true feelings. Elbryan began
to understand that it was something else, something darker by far.
Elbryan sat bolt upright, unblinking. "Uncle Mather?" he asked
breathlessly, a coldness creeping into his very body.
 A coldness, a blackness, a living death.
The ranger's mind was whirling, trying to make sense of the undeniable
event. Only one creature could bring such darkness, he realized, and then,
suddenly, he understood. Whether Mather had facilitated the warning from the
other side of life, or whether it was simply a connection wrought of the magic
of Oracle, Elbryan neither knew nor cared. What he did know was that the, demon
dactyl was searching for him; for them, sending its otherworldly vision out far
and wide.
Fear gripped Elbryan as he realized that his own use of Oracle might be
helping his enemy locate him and his friends. He leaped up, slamming his head
against the roots and ground that formed the cave's ceiling, and rushed to the
mirror, turning it down, breaking all connection. He scrambled for the exit
then, pulling down the blanket and wrapping it about the mirror, then crawled
out into the waning daylight, calling for Avelyn.
* * *
From the flow of molten lava, the demon dactyl pulled its latest creation
-- a glowing spike, a tapering spear -- and held it aloft.
"Fools all." The beast laughed, eyeing its masterpiece, a weapon that
would find and destroy the pitiful humans seeking Aida. Into the spike, the
beast sent its vision, the telltale tracings of human-woven magic. Into the
spike, the demon sent its power, the strength of the underworld, the strength to
burn.
Then the beast called to its elite guards, the armored giants, and to
their leader, Togul Dek.
When the brute was before the dark master, Bestesbulzibar held forth the
glowing spear.
Togul Dek hesitated, feeling the heat, the intense magical strength.
Bestesbulzibar thrust the nine-foot spike forward and growled a final
warning, and Togul Dek, more fearful of the demon than of the fiery implement,
grasped it without further hesitation, though the giant winced as his flesh
touched the diabolical weapon.
Togul Dek's expression became one of surprise, for the spike felt cool to
the touch.
"Take ten with you," Bestesbulzibar commanded. "Humans approach my throne.
The spear will lead you."
"Does Bestesbulzibar who is King want any living?" the giant asked,
barking each word.
The dactyl scoffed as if the notion were absurd, revealing that he did not
think these pitiful few worthy of his time and energy.
"Bring me their heads," he instructed. "You may eat the rest."
The giant stamped one boot and spun away, collecting its ten closest
allies among the elite guard and sweeping out of the throne room.
The dactyl dismissed the remaining guards and moved back to one of the
glowing lava rivers, dipping his clawed fingers into the fiery stone, feeling
the power of the magic that was his alone to command, musing again about the
darkness of his complete rule.

"How could I have been such a fool?" Avelyn lamented, dropping his round
head into his plump hands.
"How so?" Pony demanded, realizing they had no time for doubts and blame.
Each challenge had to be met without regret for past decisions.
"I should have known that the dactyl would search us, out, should have.
anticipated his magical vision," Avelyn replied:
"We do not know that the dactyl has searched us out," Elbryan interjected.
"Perhaps the shadow at Oracle was but a warning. We have met with few enemies
since our departure, only one organized group that we even know was part of the
demon's army. Why should Bestesbulzibar --"
 "Speak not that name aloud so close to the dactyl's home!" Avelyn warned.
"Do not even think it, if you can so discipline your thoughts!"
Elbryan nodded an apology to Avelyn and to all the fearful others. "We do
not know that it is too late," the ranger said softly.
"Ye put up the guard, then?" Bradwarden asked.
Avelyn nodded. Using the sunstone he had taken from Quintall, he had
enacted a shield against divining magic. It was not a difficult enchantment,
actually; and one that powerful Avelyn could maintain with the focused sunstone
for h very long time without severely taxing his energies for other magics.
It was one that Avelyn should have enacted, he now realized, even as they
set out from the region of Dundalis.
"Stupid!" Paulson grumbled, eyeing the monk dangerously, and then he
stormed away.
Elbryan was quick to follow, catching up to the man, grabbing him by the
elbow, and leading him farther from the camp behind a shielding wall of
evergreens where they could speak in private.
"You did not mention that we should enact such a protective shield," the
ranger pointed out.
"I ain't no wizard," Paulson argued. "I didn't even know about such a
thing."
"Then it is good that we have Avelyn with us, who can block the demon's
sight."
"If the damned demon ain't upon us even now," Paulson retorted, and he
glanced about nervously as he spoke the grim words.
"I'll not tolerate any placement of blame on this journey," Elbryan said
sternly.
Paulson stared at him long and hard, finally relenting under the ranger's
unblinking stare. Instead of growing defensive, as was his nature, the big man
tried hard to see things from Elbryan's perspective. Finally, he nodded. "It's
good that Avelyn is with us," he said sincerely.
"We'll get there," Elbryan promised, and started away.
"Hey, ranger," Paulson called after Elbryan had gone a few steps. Elbryan
turned to regard the man, noting his grin.
"We'll get there; eh?" Paulson cracked. "Ye sure that's a good thing?"
"I am sure it is not," Elbryan replied, matching the big man's grin.

From the edge of a high, rocky bluff, crouched defensively behind the
stone, the companions watched the latest caravan wind its way out of the
Barbacan. Goblins comprised the bulk of the line, trudging with heads down,
looking thoroughly miserable, especially those chained to the various powrie war
engines catapults, ballistae, and great corkscrew boring machines meant to drive
huge holes in castle walls.
The caravan went on and on, exiting a pass in the dark mountain wall and
forming a line that went out of the companions' sight to the east.
"Alpinador, too, is under siege," Elbryan reasoned.
"The dactyl will use the summer months to drive right to the coast, no
doubt where more powries await his armies," Avelyn added, and then, considering
his own words, he snorted loudly. "Unless of course the demon's soldiers have
already driven to the coast. Ho, ho, what!"
"Then no time for wasting," remarked Bradwarden, a few feet away, behind
the others on a lower point. The centaur obviously could not climb up the stone
and crouch, and so he had spent the last half hour waiting rather impatiently,
listening to descriptions of the exotic powrie war machines and to Paulson's
unending giant count.
"We have to wait for Pony," Elbryan reminded the anxious centaur.
"Then wait no more," came a voice from ahead, and the group turned as one
to see the woman moving lightly down the trail.
 "There. are several passes that will get us through," she explained. "This
trail branches a quarter mile from here; the left road winds back down and out
of the range, but the right climbs higher and into the mountains, which are not
so deep."
"Is there cover?" Elbryan asked.
Pony shrugged. "As much as we can hope for," she replied.
"Boulders line the trail on both sides, but if our enemy has guards posted
in proper position, they will likely spot us."
"Then we must spot them first," Elbryan said determinedly, taking up
Hawkwing. He sent Chipmunk off and running, flanking them to the left, bade Pony
guard the right, and he, himself, moved in front of Avelyn, Paulson, and
Bradwarden, taking a long lead.
Within an hour's time, they had climbed high across the southern face of
the dark mountain, to the edge of the tree line, where the wind blew chill.
Elbryan, far in the lead and out of sight of the others, left markers showing
his course, but even with this, the ranger was fearful that they would all get
separated and lost. The Barbacan was a wild place, as untamed as any land the
ranger had ever seen; a place of huge, rocky outcroppings, jagged stones, and
thick copses of dark trees. It was a place where a trail ended abruptly in a
hundred-foot drop, or a boulder might come suddenly down upon an unwary
traveler's head. A place of the most primal danger, it was a place where the
ranger felt most alive.
A slight noise to his right put Elbryan into a crouch, his hand going from
his. bow to his sword. He slipped to shelter behind a stone, then dropped flat
on his belly, peeking out around the edge at a small ravine, a cut in the
mountain filled with trees and brush.
The noise came again, soft footsteps, and Elbryan followed it to its
source, just a shadow moving gracefully through the tangle. He took up Hawkwing
again, his eyes never leaving the target.
And then he relaxed as the shadow moved through a clear area.
"Pony," he called softly, catching her attention. He noted the stealthy
manner in which she approached, and that kept him on his guard.
"Goblin," she whispered from a short distance, not daring to cross the
last clearing to come beside Elbryan, "high and to the left beyond the twin
pines and behind the jutting stone."
Elbryan scanned in that direction, but had to move out from his rock even
to spot the jutting stone. He nodded as the place, though not the goblin, came
into view.
"How many?"
"I saw but one," Pony answered. "There could be more, further to the left
and down."
Elbryan glanced back along the trail. He had moved from shadow to shadow,
and it was unlikely that the goblin had spotted him from that distance, but
Avelyn, and particularly Bradwarden, would have trouble being inconspicuous. By
the ranger's calculations, the trailing trio would soon be well within the
goblin's view.
He noted a movement up above, a dark shape coming atop the jutting rock.
Torn and uncertain, the ranger fitted an arrow to Hawkwing. "If there are more,
they'll soon know of us," he whispered.
"Perhaps I can get behind the spot," Pony replied.
Elbryan started to ponder that possibility, then noted the goblin's
attention was occupied by something back along Elbryan's path.
"It knows of us," the ranger explained, and up came his bow. The shot was
fully a hundred yards, and he had no more of a target than the goblin's head and
shoulders, and in the crosswinds of a mountain face. His arrow hit the mark
right down the middle, and the dark form fell away.
 There came a cry and a second shape darted out from behind the boulder,
scrambling away.
"We are known!" the ranger called to Pony and the pair jumped up and
started in pursuit, though they had little hope of catching a creature in this
wild tangle. Just a few steps away, though, they skidded to a sudden stop,
seeing the goblin coming back, staggering out of a copse and across an expanse
of bare rock.
They watched curiously as the monster jerked suddenly, then fell over, and
a moment later, Chipmunk appeared from the brush behind the creature, scampering
up to retrieve his daggers.
"Well done," Elbryan said, though the man was far from earshot.
"And a good thing it is," Pony added.
"All three of us," the ranger instructed, "and get Paulson as well. We
must search the area to make sure that no other sentinels were nearby to witness
the kills."
The four did just that, circling the area and spying out the spot from
every conceivable angle, looking for goblins or any signs that goblins had been
about. When they were at last convinced that the kills had been unnoticed,
Elbryan hustled them along, coming to a bowl-shaped depression as night
descended across the wild mountains. The ranger would have liked to go farther,
but they could not travel the difficult and dangerous terrain in the dark, and
they certainly could light no torches.
They set their camp with confidence that their progress had gone
undetected; they could not know that a giant carried a weapon which had sensed
the kills and had led its wielder right to the spot of the disposed goblin
carcasses, a spot not so far from their encampment.
The night was cool and quiet, save the moan of the wind across mountain
stones. Elbryan and Pony sat close, huddled under a blanket. To the side loomed
the huge shape of Bradwarden, the centaur using its bulk to shield Avelyn from
the wind. Paulson and Chipmunk were out and about, guarding the perimeter.
"Tomorrow we climb more sheer faces," Elbryan said with some concern.
"Oh, don't ye worry," Bradwarden assured him. "I'll find me way."
"I am more concerned with Avelyn," the ranger remarked. As if on cue, the
snoozing monk rolled over and snored loudly. "He is in no shape for this."
"He will make it," Pony said with determination. "I have traveled with
Avelyn for many months and have never known him to complain. He sees this as his
destiny; he will not be denied by any mountain obstacles."
Elbryan studied Avelyn for a long while, considering his own experiences
with the man, and conceded the point.
"Besides," noted the centaur, "he's getting the best of sleep."
Again as if on cue, the monk shifted and snored.

"Chipmunk?" Paulson whispered, his voice quickly buried under the moaning
wind. "Is that yerself?" The big man crouched lower, peering intently at a group
of trees, the source of the unmistakable sound of a footstep.
Only then did Paulson realize that there seemed to be one extra tree in
the group. "Damnation," he whispered, turning to run.
A spinning sliver, flickering in the quiet light, spun right past his
head, causing him to cry out and fall away. He hit the ground, looking back
toward the giant, noting its surprised, jerky movement as Chipmunk's dagger hit
it squarely in the chest with a metallic ring.
"Come on, then!" the big man cried, scrambling to his feet, gaining
confidence in the knowledge that his trusted comrade was nearby. The ringing
sound of that last impact played in his mind, though; giants were tough enough
adversaries without metal armor!
And this one was indeed armored, Paulson realized as the monster closed on
him. Again came the spinning slivers, two in rapid succession, this time angled
higher to hit the monster about the head. Both did, and both were repelled by a
metal helm.
"Don't stay to fight!" Paulson called and he turned to flee, noticing then
an orange glow emanating at the giant's side. Mesmerized, the big man hesitated,
then he screamed out, realizing that the glow was a spear-like weapon carried by
a second giant! He got his weapon up to block, but the demon-forged spike
blasted right through it, right through Paulson's raised forearm, and deep into
the man's belly.
Waves of searing agony ripped through Paulson. He had never imagined the
possibility of such pain. Hardly conscious, he felt himself lifted high into the
air and then, with a flick of the giant's huge arms, he was flying free,
launched into the night, into death.
Chipmunk ran screaming for his life, tears of fear and horror and the loss
of yet another friend streaking his cheeks. Giants were all about him. He could
feel the heat of the orange glow following his path. He had to get back to the
camp, and yet, he realized that to do so would put them all in jeopardy, would
likely bring about the end of the quest!
Chipmunk found a hole instead, burying himself quickly under piled leaves
at the base of a thick tree. His confidence mounted as a pair of giants stomped
past, oblivious of him. A third came rushing by, and then came the one carrying
the glowing spike.
That giant, too, started past, but skidded to a stop just beyond the hole,
compelled by the demonic weapon.
Chipmunk tried to cry out as his covering was pushed aside, as he looked
up at the towering, fifteen-foot-tall monster, up at the huge, awful spike. He
tried to cry out, but no sound would come forth, only a breathless gurgle, that
ended abruptly as the monstrous spike fast descended.

The cries of the doomed pair had alerted Elbryan and the others to the
danger, so they were not unprepared when the first of the giants crashed through
the brush and charged over the rim of the bowl-shaped encampment. The leading
brute, apparently thinking the centaur a mere horse, tramped right by
Bradwarden, who stood with head and torso bowed.
As the giant passed, Bradwarden turned, lifting his heavy bow and letting
fly. The arrow hit solidly, denting the armor plate and driving through, but not
so deep as to cause any serious wound. Three quick strides later, the centaur
was upon the giant, ramming hard into the behemoth's back. Bradwarden's heavy
bow, swung as a club, rang off the plated armor, splintering as it hit. The
giant stumbled and went down, the centaur in fast pursuit, cursing his
foolishness in using the bow and reaching for his cudgel. But two more giants
were close behind, following their friend in, now bearing down on Bradwarden.

"What does it do?" Pony asked Avelyn as the monk held aloft a stone the
woman had not seen before, a clump of black octahedral crystals.
"It is lodestone," Avelyn explained. "Magnetite." He went silent then,
sending his thoughts into the stone, using his magical energies to ignite those
powers within the stone. The giants were bearing down on Bradwarden in a
straight line; Elbryan had gone off to the side and was now calling out the
presence of more of the huge fomorians.
Pony left Avelyn's side then, rusting to join with Elbryan.

The orange glow outlined them, three more behemoths closing in. Hawkwing
went to work at once, arrow after arrow rushing down to bang hard against metal
armor, into the breastplate, then repeatedly into the visor, several tips
slipping through to sting the giant face, to make the monster howl in agony.
One of the three fell back from the charge, clutching at its face, blinded
by the sting.
 Elbryan dropped his bow and drew out Tempest as Pony scrambled by. He
ordered her to the left, toward the giant without the glowing spike, for he
sensed that the spike held some diabolical power.
Pony readily complied, thinking that the remaining giant, smaller than the
spike wielder, would be a quicker kill -- not that any giant was an easy kill!
She rushed right for it, feigning a dodge to the side as it lifted its huge
sword. By far the quicker, agile Pony went one step left, then back to the
right, then straight ahead, under the awkward cut of the giant's weapon, falling
into a headlong roll that brought her right between the monster's widespread
legs.
The giant reacted quickly, snapping straight and tall, closing its legs to
entrap the foolish human.
Pony's graphite defeated that maneuver, though, sent a crackling bolt of
energy along the monster's inner thighs that left it swaying, legs widespread,
as the woman worked her way out the back. Now Pony went to more conventional
weaponry, drawing her sword and turning right back in on the monster, slamming
the weapon hard against the giant's lower back, seeking an opening between the
protective plates.
She found none, but stayed behind the staggering brute, belting away as
the giant tried to turn and grab her.

Elbryan didn't know what to make of this armored foe, and especially of
its glowing spike. Why weren't the monster's hands burning? the ranger wondered,
for surely that spike was brutally hot.
The giant stabbed straight ahead and Elbryan left those thoughts behind,
suddenly more concerned with keeping his body from sporting very large holes. He
went around to the side with a flourish, snapping Tempest against the pursuing
spike, each hit sending a shower of orange sparks into the air.
Elbryan knew that he had to get up higher, within striking distance of the
giant's head. He knew the terrain, had marked it clearly in his thoughts before
the night had fallen. He ran hard to the side, then leaped up atop a rounded
boulder, gaining a foothold and turning back in a quick charge to meet the
rushing monster.
Tempest snapped in, level with the giant's eyes. Up came the spike to
block, but too late, and Tempest slashed hard against the visor, twisting the
giant's head from the force of the blow.
Out came a straight thrust of the spike; Elbryan turned his hips and
skittered back. The ranger leaped ahead and launched a vicious sidelong swipe as
the heavy, awkward spike retracted. He connected solidly on the side of the
giant's head, knocking the helm away, the behemoth staggering a long stride to
the side.
"The next will not be so blocked!" the ranger promised.
The giant was not without a trick of its own, though. It came at Elbryan,
but shifted as Tempest came up to parry, as Elbryan's feet turned defensively
sideways, allowing the ranger to retreat back or to either side. The giant
plunged the spear down low instead, right into the boulder, and Elbryan was too
surprised to seize the momentary opening and charge ahead.
He had to leap away instead, far out to the side, crashing through twigs
and saplings, for the boulder superheated, turned red, and then melted away
right below him!
The ranger was dazed but knew that he had to keep moving as this pile of
molten stone rolled down, igniting small, smokey fires among the twigs.
In the sudden glow, Elbryan saw more forms moving about the perimeter,
giant forms, and between the reinforcements and that terrible glowing spike, the
ranger knew that he and his friends were overmatched.
 Avelyn fell deeper into the stone, felt its energy building to a critical
mass. Lodestone was highly magnetic; its enchantment would send it fast to a
metal surface. Impossibly fast, faster than a crossbow bolt.
The monk fell back, nearly toppling, as the stone suddenly zipped away,
flying unerringly for the armored chest of the giant closest behind Bradwarden.
It hit with a tremendous, thump, jerking the behemoth from the ground, and then,
to Avelyn's amazement, for he had never really used magnetite before, the second
giant in line shuddered violently as well.
Bradwarden had forced the helm off the fallen giant by then, his cudgel
turning the monster's head to mush before it could rise up. The centaur heard
the commotion close behind and turned to see both giants slumping to the ground,
the closest showing. a neatly blasted hole right through its breastplate, right
through its chest, right through its back.
"Oh, good shot!" Bradwarden congratulated Avelyn.
The monk was already running toward Bradwarden, toward the fallen giants,
thinking to retrieve the stone. But then there were other giants, all about,
huge shadowy forms blurring the otherwise straight line of the perimeter.
"On me back!" the centaur cried.
"My stone!"
"No time!"
"Everyone out!" came a call, Elbryan's voice. "Avelyn with Bradwarden!
Myself with Pony! Paulson with Chipmunk!" If the two are still with us! he added
silently. "Out and away, to a direction of your own choosing!"
Pony could hardly believe what she was hearing, what she was seeing. They
had come so far together, and now they were being forced into an impromptu,
hardly organized retreat. She waited for her turning giant to align itself
properly, then scrambled back between its legs once more. Again there came that
nasty crackle of energy, and this time, the giant's muscles betrayed it, tensing
with the current, and the brute tumbled down.
Pony had no time to stop and take advantage of the situation, though, as
she scrambled for the center of the encampment, for Avelyn and Bradwarden,
hoping against hope that they might all link together once more.
She saw the monk lying across the centaur's back, Bradwarden's powerful
legs pounding away up the north face of the bowl, the same direction from which
the first giants had come. They made the lip and went over, and almost
immediately after, all the sky lit up with the bright flames of a tremendous
fireball.
Pony fell back, all the battle stopped for a moment, and when she caught
her breath, the woman was satisfied to hear the receding hoofbeats. Avelyn and
Bradwarden, at least, had gotten away.
But how might she and Elbryan? Pony had to wonder as she skittered down
the rocky slope, a pair of giants in fast pursuit. Purely on instinct, the woman
dove ahead, over the giant Bradwarden had killed. She felt a rush of wind and
heard a crash behind her, a giant club smashing against armor.
Still she scrambled, expecting to be buried at any moment, expecting her
life to end with a sudden, burning explosion.
Over the next giant she went, trying to regain her footing. But she
tripped and stumbled, falling atop the third dead behemoth, her hand tearing
against a jagged edge in the monster's breastplate then slipping into the gore
of its torn guts.
There was fighting right behind her! She turned and saw Elbryan darting
about the giant pair, Tempest working furiously. But he could not win! Even if
he beat these two, others were coming fast, including the one with the glowing
spike!
Pony's hand instinctively clutched onto something hard and she retracted
it to find the stone Avelyn had used. She stared at it curiously for just a
moment, trying to discern its energy.
 "Run!" came Elbryan's cry.
Pony looked to the fight as she rose, saw Elbryan, Hawkwing in one hand,
Tempest in the other, jump out of the path of a fast descending club, then leap
back suddenly as a sword swished across. Pony cried out, thinking her love cut
in half, but Elbryan had been quick enough to dodge out of harm's way.
He planted his feet as he landed and rushed straight ahead, screaming
wildly, his sword flow glowing a furious bluish-white, snapping to and fro,
darting straight ahead, sparking as it banged against unyielding armor.
But the ranger's tactic worked, the sudden rush forcing the giants into a
short retreat, forcing them off balance. One went down over a fallen body,
reaching out as it fell to grab its companion. Another short hop and attack by
Elbryan had that one tumbling, too, both landing in a tangled heap.
The ranger had no intention of jumping atop them, not with other giants
bearing in. He turned and ran as Pony ran, catching up to Pony as they scrambled
together up the north slope, following the trail of their friends. Over the lip,
they saw the effects of Avelyn's fireball, small fires here and there, the
largest being the one still burning atop the curled and blackened corpse of yet
another giant. Down the pair ran through the heat and the smoke, stumbling, but
using each other for support. They heard the roars behind them, knew that to
stop was to die.
Into the night, the four survivors went, stumbling blindly, separated, two
and two, with a third of their party dead.

CHAPTER 50
Flight

Avelyn lay across the centaur's back, staring more behind than ahead, praying
for his companions.
Bradwarden, though, would not turn back and would not slow. Determined,
purposeful, the centaur pounded along the mountain trails, hooves digging firm
holds and propelling him and his all-important passenger mightily. Soon after
they had left the encampment, Avelyn had looped the cat's eye about Bradwarden's
head, and so the centaur could see in the dark and was not slowed as, were the
pursuing giants -- as were their own companions.
"We must find a defensible spot!" the monk kept shouting.
"We'll not be stopping!" the centaur finally answered and, as if to
accentuate that point, Bradwarden lowered his human torso forward and gained
speed.
"A defensible spot!" Avelyn insisted. "To await Elbryan and Jilseponie, to
bring them in to our side and together ward off the giants!"
"No giant'll be catching us," the centaur assured him. "Nor will Elbryan
and Pony, though I lament their loss."
"They are not dead!" the monk insisted.
"No," agreed Bradwarden. "Resourceful, the both o' them. Not dead, but not
for catching us, and when ye kill the dactyl, we'll come back out and find them
both, I'm not doubting!"
Avelyn, dumbfounded, had no answers. He could hardly believe that
Bradwarden would so leave their friends behind, deserting the pair in so
perilous a situation. Avelyn came to understand then just how determined the
centaur was, just how determined all his companions were, that he was the hope,
that he alone might do battle with the dactyl and win. Avelyn believed, and had
spoken it openly and often, that it was his destiny to meet with the hellish
creature; and so his friends meant to get him there, and if all of them perished
in the process then by their thinking, at least so be it.
A great weight fell over the monk as he came to that realization, a
responsibility beyond anything Avelyn Desbris had ever known: greater even than
his eight-year dedication that had gotten him into St.-Mere-Abelle, to the
fulfillment of his dearest mother's lifelong desire; greater even than the task
assigned him by the Church, and by God, to go to Pimaninicuit and prepare this
latest generation of gemstones. Avelyn had been ready to argue with Bradwarden,
to insist, even if it meant dropping from the centaur's back, or using some
magic against Bradwarden, that they stop and wait for their friends. But now the
sobered monk remained silent and uncomplaining. Bradwarden meant to deliver him,
and so Avelyn must be delivered.
Or all the deaths would be for naught.
They came through the pass of the great Barbacan with night still thick
about them, having put many miles behind them in a furious rush. Bradwarden,
clearly exhausted, would not think of stopping, though he was glad when Avelyn
announced that he would walk and not ride for a time.
Overlooking the valley within the mountain ring, the pair were overwhelmed
-- particularly Bradwarden, who had not viewed the great encampment before.
Thousands of campfires dotted the dark plain below them, thousands and
thousands.
And beyond the masses loomed a single dark silhouette, a conical mountain
tipped by a steady stream of dark smoke.
Aida.
"The dactyl's home," Avelyn whispered to. the centaur, and Bradwarden
needed no clarification, for both of them were staring squarely at the ominous
mountain.
"We can get down and about the camp," Bradwarden said a few moments later,
after pausing to inspect the layout. The centaur pointed to the left, to one of
the great black arms running down from the lone mountain, nearly to the base of
the mountains Bradwarden and Avelyn had just come through: "Though we're looking
at a full day o' walking," the centaur finished.
"Out in the daylight near that swarm?" Avelyn asked doubtfully.
"Not a choice," Bradwarden replied. "We'll get behind the mountain arm and
hope our enemy has pot an army on the other side of it."
Avelyn nodded and silently followed the indomitable centaur, denying his
obvious exhaustion.

They were scrambling in the right direction, Elbryan knew, following their
friends, though they certainly were not gaining any ground. Every so often, the
pair crossed a low spot, a muddy puddle, and Elbryan spotted the deep tracks of
Bradwarden. Widespread tracks, he noted hopefully; the centaur was in full run.
That was what Elbryan and Pony wanted. Duty told them that they must
follow, but their higher purpose reminded them that all that mattered was the
delivery of Avelyn. "Run on, Bradwarden," Elbryan muttered more than once, and
always Pony nodded her agreement.
Elbryan was surprised at how easy the mountain trails were to navigate,
even in the dark. The Barbacan was an imposing range of tall. rocky mountains,
capped in snow year-round with many sheer cliffs, some with drops of two or even
three thousand feet. But in this particular region, with the trail cutting
between two such peaks and thus bringing the climbers nowhere near the top, the
going remained steady and fairly easy. The ranger believed that they might see
the other side, the slope down to the valley beyond, before the dawn. Avelyn had
described the general layout to them all, had told of the valley and of the lone
mountain that maps named Aida. In that description, the monk had noted often and
hopefully that the barrier mountain range, though tall and ominous, was not
wide.
So it was with some hope that Elbryan and Pony ran on, and though they
could not possibly match the pace of the galloping centaur, they found many
occasions when they could cross over a blocking outcropping of stone that
Bradwarden would have had to circumvent. Perhaps with the dawn, they would sight
their friends again and would be able to link up.
Even the pursuit seemed left behind, the fumbling giants not keeping pace.
Elbryan's one fear, though, was that the behemoths knew the region and thus knew
a quicker way.
That fear came to fruition when Elbryan and Pony entered one long narrow
pass, a jumble of boulders and scraggly trees sheltered from the strong winds,
but, the pair both silently noted, without any obvious escape routes. Halfway
along the trail through the gully, an ominous and familiar orange glow appeared
-- ahead of the pair.
Out stepped the giant, Togul Dek, still wearing no helm, its huge features
twisted with rage. Roaring at the two humans -- and all the louder when Elbryan
banged an arrow off its tremendous breastplate -- the behemoth jabbed its
glowing spike first into the tree at its left, then in the one at its right,
sending both up instantly as towering candles. Between the trees stepped the
brute, outlined by fire, not bothered by fire, and Elbryan and Pony noted the
dark silhouettes of another pair of giants behind it.
"Take him head-on," the ranger instructed, and he dove to the muddy
ground, wrapping his cloak tightly about him. He came up in a dash, to the side
and not straight ahead, and Pony, trusting him, charged out from his wake,
waving her sword menacingly, drawing the spike wielder's attention.
The giant set its huge feet wide apart and slapped the demon-created spear
across its open palm. It paid no heed to the ranger, for it knew he had nowhere
to flee, and concentrated instead on the woman, brave and foolish, walking
steadily to her doom.
Each step came more difficult to Pony. She heard a commotion far behind
and understood that the other giants -- probably three or four more, if her
count at the previous fight was accurate -- had sealed off that end of the
gully. Where had Elbryan gone, she wondered, and why? Why hadn't he just put
Hawkwing to use, shooting arrow after arrow at the spike wielder's unarmored
head until the thing fell over dead? Then they could fight two against two, and
try to break out into the night.
Pony shook the confusing possibilities from her thoughts. This was
Elbryan, she reminded herself: the Nightbird, the ranger, elven trained.
Even as her resolve began to mount once more, she saw him, running right
through the fires, along a low branch on the tree to the giant's right. Flames
licked at him, at his soggy muddy cloak, but he scampered along, buried by the
blaze, bearing down on his unsuspecting enemy.
Pony howled and charged, drawing the monster's full attention. She skidded
up quickly and loosed a forked bolt of crackling lightning, striking hard the
leader and both of the giants behind it.
Then, before Togul Dek had recovered from the lightning, Elbryan was upon
the brute, the ranger running full out to the end of the branch, leaping high
and hard, sword extended, throwing his arms wide to thrust the smoldering cape
behind him. Tempest dove right into the giant's face, while Elbryan's booted
feet were planted hard against the behemoth's massive chest.
He had only one quick strike; he had to be perfect. And so tie was, mighty
Tempest blasting through bone and flesh, diving into the giant's brain.
Togul Dek tried to respond, tried to lift the spike and bring it to bear,
but the weapon flew from the suddenly weak hands, drawing a bright line in the
dark air. It landed far to the side, upon a stone it fast reduced to flowing,
molten lava, rolling down the side of the mountain, taking the spike with it,
and that, in turn, melting all subsequent stone, the fiery avalanche gaining
momentum.
Elbryan viciously wrenched his blade free, but held his footing as the
giant fell backward, the ranger riding the behemoth like some felled tree. The
two giants behind their leader did not know what to make of the scene, had not
even noticed Elbryan until Togul Dek began that backward fall. And then, it was
too late.
Elbryan hit the ground in a graceful forward roll, rushing up and stabbing
hard, finding the crease between one giant's huge breastplate and its pelvic
armor. Throwing his momentum firmly behind the sword, the ranger drove it in to
its hilt, then scrambled past, right between the brutes, drawing Tempest back
out as he went. He cut a sudden, sharp turn, diving into yet another roll, this
one aimed at the second giant as it swung its club. The weapon swished high of
the mark, harmlessly -- for Elbryan, at least. The wounded giant, clutching its
torn guts, bent right into the weapon's path and got clipped across the
forehead. It went down hard, groaning, trying to shake the dizziness, growling
against the searing pain.
Elbryan got in a fast strike on the still-standing brute, then darted out
into the night. He didn't think himself quick enough, though, thought the giant
would get in one hit, but then the monster inexplicably dropped its club and
howled, grasping at its visor.
Pony ran by, stabbing the standing giant hard in the back of the leg, then
rushing out to join Elbryan.
"What did you do to its eyes?" the ranger asked, but Pony had no answer,
only shrugged and kept on running.
Pursuit was close and fast, forcing the tired companions to stay at full
speed. They came to a wall of stone, climbable, but Elbryan feared the giants
would have an easier time than he and Pony, that the brutes would close in and
simply pluck them off the wall before they got over.
No other options; the ranger decided, and so he scrambled ahead, hoping to
get a firm handhold, that he might propel Pony over him, over the stone, out to
freedom in the dark night. He neared the top when he heard Pony, just a few feet
below him, cry out in surprise.
Elbryan turned and screamed, seeing a giant reaching for his lover. Pony
had no weapon in hand -- no weapon that Elbryan saw, at least -- though she had
her arm extended out toward the giant.
She yelled again, and something flew out from her grasp, rocketed into the
giant's visor with a resounding ring, and though the missile did not penetrate
the helm, but rather bounced off, it hit with tremendous force, bending and
creasing the metal into the giant's face, and the brute fell away. Pony was
quick to retrieve the stone, not willing to abandon such a powerful weapon.
Elbryan grabbed Pony by the shoulder and hauled her up, pulling her right
past him, then pushing hard until she went over the lip of the ridge. The ranger
dug in and scrambled for all his life, and got over the rim just ahead of
reaching fingers, a second giant coming in for him.
Pony was fast to those fingers, her sword slashing hard, taking a couple
from the hand, and then the pair were running again; and this time no pursuit
was close behind.
"What did you do to the first at the base of the wall?" the ranger asked
her.
"Lodestone," Pony replied. "The gem rushes to targeted metal. I wish I had
a hundred more like it!"
Elbryan looked back in the direction of the ridge and shuddered at the
sheer power of the stone. He had thought his sword impressive, had thought
himself a marvelous warrior, and so he was, but how did that measure against the
power of the stones?
Elbryan was glad that Pony was on his side and that Avelyn, much more
powerful than the woman, was on his side. That thought gave him hope that his
monk friend would indeed defeat the demon that had come to Corona.

Though she didn't understand its source, Tuntun watched the growing
spectacle of the fiery avalanche with satisfaction. The elf had played only a
minor role in the battle, fired only a single arrow. But such a shot! Tuntun had
put her arrow right against a giant's visor, right through the slit! In her.
mind, she replayed again its howl and saw again the sight of Elbryan and
Jilseponie running out to the safety, of the dark night.
Convinced that they were safe for the time being, the elf had then circled
back, down below the scene of the fight, to rejoin her precious companion.
"I'll take you no farther," she said to Symphony, patting the muzzle of
this animal that had served her so well. Even though the trails seemed easy for
at least a short distance, Tuntun decided that it would be better for her to use
stealth. Alone, the elf could run full out without any fear of detection.
"I know that you are smart enough to get away," Tuntun whispered, and the
great horse snorted as if he understood. The elf took her pack and her weapons -
- bow and a long dagger -- and with a final look Symphony's way, a final nod of
appreciation, she ran off into the night.

CHAPTER 51
Aida

Elbryan and Pony were coming down the northwestern face of the mountainous
barrier when dawn broke over the Barbacan. Only then was the size of the
dactyl's gathered army revealed, a swarming black mass that filled the whole
valley between the long arms of a lone, smoking mountain, some ten miles or so
to the north.
"How many?" Pony breathed.
"Too many," the ranger said helplessly, having no better answer.
"And how are we to get to the mountain?" Pony asked. "How many thousands
must we defeat even to reach its black rocky base?"
Elbryan shook his head determinedly, somehow sure his companion's
assessment was not correct. "A few sentries perhaps," he replied. "Nothing
more."
Pony eyed him skeptically.
"The demon is confident," Elbryan explained, "inviting us in. The dactyl
fears no mortal man and no monster, and it has no reason to believe that we
would ever dare to move against it in such small numbers, small enough to enter
the Barbacan unnoticed."
"That has been our hope since the beginning," Pony agreed.
"And that is our only hope now," Elbryan said, "a hope to which we must
hold fast. If the demon sets its army to block us, then so we shall be blocked,
and not my sword, nor Avelyn's magic, not Bradwarden's strength, nor your own
assortment of weapons, will possibly get us through so many swarming monsters.
"But it will not come to that," the ranger went on. "Even if the demon
dactyl thinks that some enemies have come to its home, as the armored giants and
that terrible spear might indicate, it remains supremely confident that none in
all the world can stand against it."
"How do you know this?"
The simple question seemed to catch Elbryan off his guard. Indeed, how did
he know so much about this enemy that he had never seen and had never battled
before? In the end, the ranger realized that he did not know, that he was
guessing, and hoping. He answered Pony only with a shrug, and that seemed
enough. They had come too far to worry about things they couldn't control, and
so they started along once more, quickly picking a path down the side of the
mountain. They were both weary after the long night of running, but neither
entertained any, thoughts of stopping to rest, not with so many monsters before
them -- and perhaps more than a few chasing them.
An hour later, moving across an open expanse of bare rock -- the two
friends feeling very exposed indeed! -- Elbryan stopped suddenly and dropped to
a crouch. Thinking danger at hand, Pony crouched as well,; and reached her hand
into a pocket, fingering her few stones.
"There!" the ranger said excitedly, pointing down across the valley to his
left, toward the western arm of Aida. Beyond that black line of stone, a black
dot, a solitary figure, moved steadily across the green' carpet, making fast for
a thick copse of trees.
No, Pony realized, not one figure, but two, a man atop a horse . . . a man
atop a centaur!
"Avelyn and Bradwarden!" she whispered.
"Running hard for Aida," Elbryan agreed. He looked back at Pony, his smile
wide. "And with none chasing them, and none standing before them."
Pony nodded grimly. Perhaps her love was right, perhaps the dactyl was
indeed inviting them in. She had to wonder, though she said nothing aloud, was
that a good thing?
The pair, were off the mountain within the hour, making their way along
its base, weaving in and out of boulders and patches of trees. They easily
avoided the few bored goblin sentries that were about, and every so often came
upon tracks that told them they were following the exact route Avelyn and
Bradwarden had taken.
Finally they crossed over the mountain's long arm and were surprised to
find the ground very warm under their feet. Only then did the pair realize that
this line of stone was not a solid ridge, but rather, like a living thing, was
growing and changing. Most of the ridge was hard, but every so often, the pair
caught a sudden glimpse of fiery orange, the lava flow bubbling up to the
surface, then meandering across the hardened black stone like a crawling orange
slug. Within a few minutes, each of these movements would cease, the lava
gradually rolling over itself or gathering in a depression, and then quickly
cooling, its glow fading to blackness.
"Like a living thing," Pony remarked, taking more care where she
subsequently stepped.
"Like the dactyl," Elbryan replied. "Flowing out from Aida, encompassing
all the world under its blackness."
It was not a pleasant thought.
They were several hours behind their friends, Elbryan and Pony realized
when they at last came upon the same expanse they had seen their friends
traversing. There was no apparent resistance; behind this arm of Aida, this
blocking ridge of black stone some twenty to thirty feet high, no monsters moved
about and no sentries were visible.
They went into a copse of trees, such a stark contrast of teeming life
next to the black wall of stone, and found again the centaur's tracks. Soon a
second set -- the tracks of a heavy human, of Brother Avelyn -- were visible
beside those of Bradwarden, and it was not hard for the pair to surmise that the
centaur might be getting tired.
But Bradwarden continued on; and so did Avelyn; and so did Pony and
Elbryan, increasing their pace in the hope that they might patch up to their
friends before they entered the caverns of the mountain. Perhaps, Elbryan
pondered, if Avelyn and Bradwarden were scrambling about, looking for some way
into the mountain . . .
It didn't happen that way. The ranger and Pony exited the copse of trees,
then crossed through a second and then a third, climbing to the lower reaches of
Aida. As soon as they cleared that last copse, they saw an entrance, a great
gaping hole, defying the slanting rays of the westering sun. If the appearance
proved, true, if this was indeed a way into the heart of Aida, then Avelyn and
Bradwarden had long ago gone into the mountain and might even now be standing
before the demon dactyl as Elbryan and Pony stood staring at the entrance. The
anxious couple went back into the last copse and cut sticks, wrapping them with
cloth to make torches.
 Then, fearful that they would be too late, the pair split, left and right,
and moved quickly and stealthily right up to the edge of the cavern entrance.
Elbryan peeked around the stone and into the gloom; Pony did likewise from
across the way; and they were somewhat relieved to find that this was indeed a
deep cavern and that it was apparently empty.
Just inside, Elbryan noted the hooflike depression of the centaur's track.
Keeping near the side wall, not daring to light a torch, the pair moved in
tentatively, allowing their eyes to adjust to the rapidly diminishing light. All
too soon, they were faced with a dilemma: light the torch or walk on in near-
complete darkness.
Elbryan winced as the fire flared to life, as if expecting all the minions
of the dactyl to descend upon him. After a few tense but uneventful moments, he
motioned to Pony, and the pair crept along, coming to a place where the tunnel
forked: one branch going right and level, the other left and down. Looking down
the right-hand side, Pony noted that the tunnel forked again just a short way
in, and the tunnel continuing to the right beyond that second fork showed yet
another side passage.
"A veritable maze," Elbryan moaned. He fell to his knees and moved the
torch low, searching for some sign of his friends' passing, but the ground was
bare, unmarked stone.
"Straight ahead," Pony declared a moment later, seeing her companion's
frustration. "Deeper -- into the mountain, and then down and to the left at the
next fork."
She spoke with determination, though it was only a guess -- a guess that
seemed as good to Elbryan as any he might make. They moved in deeper, then began
a descent along a smooth and angled passageway. Elbryan gave up any thoughts of
continuing his scan for tracks, knowing that to do so would only slow their
progress. Avelyn and Bradwarden were wandering in here, probably as lost as were
Elbryan and Pony. Sooner or later, one of the pairs, or perhaps both, would
stumble upon the dactyl or some of its deadly minions.
It was a desperate situation, and both Elbryan and Pony had to remind
themselves often that they had known it would be like this from the moment they
had set out from Dundalis.
* * *
Bestesbulzibar was outraged, and yet the demon was somewhat amused as well
as it stood with Quintall and a pair of very nervous giants, looking down the
ruined slope of a mountain. How powerful indeed was the demon-forged spike! To
cause such devastation as this, simply because it left the hand of its dying
wielder and fell across the stone!
One of the giants continued to stammer on about bad luck and other such
nonsense, trying hard to concoct some excuse that might keep its skin attached
to its body. Bestesbulzibar wasn't listening.
"Have they made the mountain?" the dactyl asked Quintall, indicating Aida.
The rockman scrutinized the terrain ahead and considered the distance. He
put a hand to his chin, an oddly human gesture. And indeed, Quintall now seemed
physically human. The rough edges of his rocky body had smoothed and rounded,
shaping more and more to, the exact human form the spirit had left behind. The
rockman was recognizable again as Quintall; the features, the size, and the body
dimensions were all the same, as if the man's spirit were somehow determining
the shape of this new stone coil. Of course, his "skin" was now obsidian in
consistency as well as hue, and red lines of molten stone still striped his
joints; his eyes, too, were red pits of liquid stone. But he looked like
Quintall, and the rockman could hardly wait until the moment that Brother Avelyn
saw his new and superior body.
"Have they?" Bestesbulzibar prompted.
Quintall nodded. "If they ran on through the night," he answered, "and if
no others rose up against them."
 "Perhaps they will be seated upon my throne when I return to it." The
dactyl sneered, eyeing the pair of giants wickedly.
"B-bad luck," one of the behemoths stammered.
"We will --"the other began to promise, but the dactyl cut it short.
"You will go and take your places with the army," Bestesbulzibar
instructed. The demon badly wanted to rip the hide from these two, and from any
others of the hunting party who had survived their encounter with the intruders
and who were now hiding nearby, fearing the demon's wrath. Or perhaps
Bestesbulzibar could take them back to Aida and throw them in the path of the
deadly Nightbird. Or, the demon mused, perhaps it would give the job of
punishment to Quintall, that Bestesbulzibar might witness the power of its
newest weapon. But the dactyl was not a stupid creature and could control its
impulses, even those bent upon destruction, which the demon loved above all
else. Bestesbulzibar had lost too many of its elite giant guardsmen already,
considering the effort he had taken to outfit the giants with armor, but, in
truth, the demon figured that it had lost little by the failure of the giants.
So Brother Avelyn and the one called Nightbird may have entered Aida; that only
meant that Bestesbulzibar might enjoy a bit of the fun of killing them.
"Come along," the dactyl instructed Quintall. The rockman moved closer and
Bestesbulzibar lifted from the ground, hooking its powerful legs about Quintall,
and then speeding the instrument of its wrath across the valley, above the heads
of the cowering minions, and back to Aida.
Quintall, possessed of heightened senses, whose glowing eyes could light
the way along dark tunnels, was sent to find the trail.

"We are too low," Avelyn complained, leaning against a wall of the stuffy,
tight cavern. He kept the light of his enchanted diamond low, hoping that it
would be less conspicuous and not attract any more guards like the two powries
Avelyn and Bradwarden had just overwhelmed. That thought in mind, Avelyn kicked
aside the bloody leg of one of the dwarves and shifted himself so that he was
looking back the way they had come.
"Now wouldn't the demon thing be at the heart?" Bradwarden asked casually,
tearing at the second powrie as he spoke. "And wouldn't a mountain's heart be
below?"
Avelyn shook his head immediately; he just didn't feel right about the
path. They had gone down and to the left at the first fork, too soon perhaps, to
be heading into the lower chambers of this tunnel-crossed mountain. "Our enemy
might be higher," he said, "near the smoking cone, where the winged demon might
quickly fly out among its minions."
He looked back at Bradwarden as he finished his argument, and he was song
that he did.
"Bah, 'tis a guess and nothing more," the centaur replied, taking a huge
bite out of a powrie leg.
Avelyn closed his eyes.
"We go along, I say," the centaur continued, talking through its full
mouth, "choosing trails as we find them. It's all a guess, yer knowing as well
as I'm knowing."
The monk sighed and didn't disagree. Whatever course they chose, Avelyn
would second-guess. Too much was, at stake here; the monk was too much on the
edge of his nerves.
"Now why're ye here?" Bradwarden asked simply. "Ye've come to face yer
destiny, so ye said, and so ye shall. We'll get there, me friend, and if that's
what's scaring ye, then I'm not for blaming ye. But turning back won't put us
any closer to anything, and every lost step gives more of our enemies the chance
to stumble upon us." He spat at that last thought and tossed the tough powrie
leg to the ground. "And the damned things aren't even good eating!"
 Avelyn managed a smile and walked by the centaur, taking great care to
avoid stepping on the discarded meal. They started off again, side by side,
their bulky forms filling the narrow passageway.

"I am not pleased by the sight," Elbryan whispered, looking down the long,
narrow descent, a ledge bordered on the left by an uneven wall and on the right
by a long drop of more than two hundred feet from where the ledge began and only
gradually diminishing as the trail moved lower. Height hardly seemed to matter
when considering the danger, though, for the drop ended in a pool of red fire, a
swirling lake of molten stone. Even from this great height, Elbryan and Pony
could feel the intense heat, and the sulfuric stench was nearly overwhelming.
"And I am not pleased at the prospect of backtracking all the way," Pony
replied. "Down we decided to go, and down this goes!"
"The fumes . . ." the ranger protested, and his fears were not lost on the
woman. Pony fumbled in her pack and took out a strip of cloth, an intended
bandage. She tore it in half and wetted both strips thoroughly from her
waterskin, then tied one about her face after she handed the other to Elbryan.
The ranger, though, had a better idea. He took the green armband from his
right arm, the one the elves said would defeat any poison, and tore it in two,
handing one strip to Pony. With a trusting nod, the woman donned the mask, as
did Elbryan, the ranger eyeing Pony all the while, admiring her gumption. The
brave woman was not easily deterred.
They needed no torch in this place, because of the glow of the lava, and
so their hands were free as they started down, at first hugging the wall tightly
-- the ledge was not narrow, but the prospects of slipping over were far too
grim. Gradually, they eased out from the wall, their pace increasing, and soon
they had put a couple hundred feet behind them, nearing the halfway point of the
descent.
Pony, holding the lead, grew hopeful when she spotted a dark shadow along
the wall far below, a side passage, running into the mountain and away from this
place: So intent was she that she never noticed the crack running right across
the ledge in front of her.
She stepped over it, and as she brought her weight down, the stone beneath
her foot gave way.
Pony screamed; Elbryan grabbed her and pulled her back to safety, the pair
falling to the ledge in a jumble. The ranger scrambled to the very lip and
watched the eight-foot stone slab falling. It bounced off a jag in the wall,
then spun over and out, tumbling into the magma, where it was swallowed,
disappearing with hardly a splash.
Pony, horrified and breathing deeply, had to slow herself down
consciously. She managed it, but the deep breaths had taken their toll, the
sulfuric fumes overwhelming her, for in the fall, she had dislodged the elven
mask. She rolled to the lip of the ledge, pulled her mask further down, and
vomited.
"We must go back," Elbryan said, putting a hand on the woman's shoulder,
trying to comfort her.
"Shorter down than up," Pony said stubbornly, and she retched again. Then
she sat up quickly, determinedly, pulled out her waterskin and washed her face
briskly, replacing the mask and standing firm.
"A long jump," Elbryan remarked, eyeing the break in the trail.
"An easy leap," Pony corrected, and to prove her point, the woman took a
single running stride and sprang across the gap, landing easily and skidding
down defensively, on the lower level.
Elbryan stared at her long and hard, admiring again that stubborn
determination but honestly wondering if she wasn't being foolhardy just to prove
a point. They had no idea if that passage down below led anywhere, after all,
and the eight-foot leap would be decidedly more difficult coming up the angled
walkway.
"Easy leap," Pony said again. The ranger managed a smile; they were going
to face a demon, after all, so how could he berate the woman for what he
considered recklessness?
Pony's eyes widened, and Elbryan realized that she was about to scream.
The ranger spun, drawing Tempest as he went, but the danger was not behind
him, but to the side, coming out of the solid wall. Stones burst outward;
Elbryan skipped back up the slope a few scrambling steps and dove to the ground.
He turned about, confused, and when he saw the source, he was even more
confused.
Quintall walked out onto the ledge.
Elbryan was up in a defensive crouch, Tempest defensively before Up,
though he knew not what to make of this moving rockman, this obsidian image of
Brother Justice.
Quintall's intentions were easy enough to discern. The rockman looked at
Pony, then turned back fully upon Elbryan, red-striped fingers clenching the air
menacingly. "Do you think you can win this time, Nightbird?" the demon's lackey
asked, his voice grating like stone rubbing stone.
"What are you?" Elbryan asked breathlessly. "What manner of being, what
tormented soul?"
"Tormented?" Quintall scoffed. "I am free, mortal fool, and shall live
forever, while your life is forfeit!" On came the rockman, stalking straight in.
Elbryan slashed his sword across, scoring a scraping hit that didn't even
slow Quintall. The ranger jumped back a step, then lunged forward, Tempest
squealing as it deflected off Quintall's face. This hit was more substantial,
Elbryan was glad to realize, for the fine elven-forged sword cracked through the
rockman's hard skin, drawing a slight orange line.
But the line cooled to black almost immediately, and if Quintall was hurt,
he did not show it. He came on furiously then, and launched a roundhouse left
hook.
Elbryan ducked the blow, just barely, and scampered back as Quintall's
hand thundered against the wall. The ranger glanced at that impact spot and his
respect for this enemy heightened, for where Quintall's hand had struck, the
stone was cracked and smoking.
"Will you run away, then, and leave the woman to me?" the rockman taunted.
"I can get to her, do not doubt."
The words made Elbryan glance down at Pony, and he saw, to his horror,
that she was readying for a jump back across the gap. "Stay down!" the ranger
yelled to her. "I will come to you!"
"You will never get past me," Quintall remarked, accentuating his point by
slamming the stone wall again, even harder.
That movement left an opening that the ranger could not resist. He came
forward in a rush, Tempest driving in hard and straight, striking hard; cracking
through the black shell and diving into the monster's magma interior.
Quintall howled and launched a series of blows, but Elbryan was the
quicker, already retracting his glowing sword -- and the ranger was glad to know
that the fine weapon had survived the immersion in the obviously hot interior of
this wicked foe -- and snapping Tempest up left, up right, up left, in three
quick parries, then straight ahead to poke the rockman in the face once again.
But even the great wound in the monster's belly fast closed, while
Quintall's movements became more cautious, more dangerous.
From down below, Pony was shouting out, but Elbryan hardly took the time.
to consider her words. He had to find some way to hurt this thing, and though
his sword might inflict some sting, it seemed that the wound could only be so
deep.
 The answer seemed obvious, and so the ranger spent no time considering the
problems with such a course, plotting out the appropriate attack. He darted
ahead again, stabbing hard, then turned as if to run by the monster on its left,
on the outside of the ledge.
Pure instinct dropped Elbryan to one knee, Quintall's heavy arm swishing
above his head -- a blow that would have launched the ranger over the edge! Then
Elbryan came up in a reverse spin, turning in front of the rockman, going hard
against the wall, and angling to get in between Quintall and the stone.
The monster's other arm shot out hard, slamming the wall in front of
Elbryan, preventing him from running past. He had no intention of such a course,
anyway, for he stopped short of the barrier, braced himself against the wall,
and shoved back with all his great strength.
He hardly moved; Quintall, so solid, so strong, laughed at him.
Then Elbryan felt the press and the heat, intense and burning from those
points on the rockman that were not hardened stone. Elbryan punched and twisted,
but the press grew ever tighter. He heard Pony scream out, but her voice seemed
to come from far away.
Then came a sudden rush of air above the slumping ranger, and the rockman
cried out, and the grip was lessened.
Elbryan stumbled back up the slope, wriggling away, and turned to see
Quintall clutching at his molten eyes, drops of hot magma glowing on his cheek.
A second puzzle faced the ranger when he noticed a cord, thin but strong, strung
to his left, along the wall, going past him and past Quintall. A quick tug
showed Elbryan that it was tied off a short distance up the ledge.
The ranger had no time to stop and figure it out, for Quintall's eyes,
like his other wounds, quickly healed. On came the Nightbird, having no answers
but to attack fiercely and hope his sword would find a weakness. He slashed
left, back right, straight ahead, back to the right again, the sword ringing
loudly and throwing sparks with each impact upon the rockman.
Despite the fact that Tempest offered no real threat, Quintall
instinctively reacted, using his solid arms to parry, using the same martial
routines he had learned long ago at St.-Mere-Abelle.
Elbryan pressed on, Tempest hitting so often that the ringing song never
paused. He drew crack after crack in the rock man, and entertained the fleeting
dope that Quintall would simply split apart.

"Tie it off, there!" Tuntun instructed, tossing the strong elvish cord to
a stunned Pony and pointing to a large, loose boulder, a dozen feet further down
the slope. "And be quick!" the elf demanded.
Pony was already running, not really knowing what Tuntun had in mind, but
not daring to waste the moment in questioning. Any plan, however desperate, was
better than nothing, and nothing was exactly what Pony could figure to do. As
the woman began looping the rope, she felt the tension from the other end and,
considering that it was on the inside of the rockman, she began to figure things
out.
Tuntun flew away, back up toward the combatants, her slender daggers in
hand, both dripping magma from Quintall's eyes.
Elbryan was still on the offensive when the elf buzzed in, the ranger's
heavy blows whacking repeatedly against the rockman's blocking arms or every so
often slipping through to smack the monster about the torso or even across the
head. He didn't know how long he could keep it up, though, and understood that
if he did no real damage soon, his momentum would be lost, and then it would be
Quintall's turn.
But then, suddenly, the rockman howled again, as Tuntun's arms came about
his head, tiny daggers finding their, way to glowing eyes. Quintall threw his
arms up mightily, connecting a glancing blow that sent the elf fluttering way up
high, one dagger flying free, spinning down to disappear in the magma.
 Elbryan grabbed up Tempest in both hands and surged ahead, swinging an.
over-the-shoulder chop with every ounce of strength he could muster. Quintall's
arm got down to block, and Tempest blasted right through it, severing the limb
halfway between wrist and elbow.
The rockman howled again, hot magma pouring from the wound, though it,
too, like all the others, hardened fast and cooled to black, leaving a stump
below the monster's red-striped elbow joint.
Quintall continued to roar, coming on with sheer outrage. Up above, Tuntun
was screaming at the top of her melodic voice, "Now! Now!"
Elbryan had no idea of what the elf could mean, but Pony did. The woman
put her back to the roped boulder, squeezed in between it and the wall and
braced her feet, then pushed out with all her strength. The strong muscles in
Pony's legs corded taut; she groaned with the great effort, and the boulder slid
only a fraction of an inch.
Pony heard the renewed fighting, the ringing blade, the roaring monster.
Strength alone would not dislodge this heavy stone; she had to be smart. She
turned her shoulders, shifting the angle a bit upward, and pushed out again. She
felt the closest edge of the stone lift from the ledge, knew that she only had
to go a bit more to get over that back edge.
Tuntun dove for the combatants, but veered at the last second as Quintall
spun, not surprised this time. The turn cost the rockman another sting as
Elbryan seized the moment and thrust ahead, Tempest cutting hard.
"Over the cord!" Tuntun yelled to the ranger. "Over the cord."
The meaning came clear to Elbryan even as Pony overturned the boulder, the
heavy rock rolling off the ledge. The ranger started to leap over the suddenly
taut, suddenly moving, cord, but only made it halfway. He dropped Tempest to the
ledge and grabbed on for all his life as the boulder plummeted, its fall pulling
the elven cord from the wall, swinging it, and Quintall and Elbryan, over the
ledge.
Down they went, screaming. They came to a sudden, jarring stop as the rope
played out to its length, the boulder jolting free of Pony's knot and spinning
down, down, to plop into the magma, where it was swallowed.
Elbryan held on, and some five feet below him, so did Quintall, the
rockman clenching his one impossibly strong hand about the rope so powerfully
that his hold was more solid than that of the two-handed man above him.
"Climb!" Pony cried to her love, and so Elbryan did, driving on with all
speed and all strength.
Faster still was Quintall, the rockman, heaving mightily, launching
himself up a foot or more, then grabbing tight again. Heaving and grabbing, he
was closing fast on Elbryan, who had at least twenty feet of scrambling still
ahead of him.
Pony continued to call out encouragement. She ran up and leaped the eight-
foot gap, slamming her shin hard against the higher lip, but driving on, running
to her love.
Hand over hand went the ranger; Pony thought he might make it. He threw
one arm and shoulder over the ledge and the woman dove to him, tugging hard. But
then, Quintall gave a great heave and caught the rope again, barely inches below
Elbryan's feet. One more leap and the ranger would be caught.
In swooped Tuntun. Elbryan saw the desperate move and cried out for the
elf to go back. He let go with one hand, trusting in Pony to brace him, and even
tried to catch the elf as she swept below him.
Elven cord was fine and strong, but Tuntun's dagger, too, was of elvish
make, and a quick flick of her wrist snapped the stretched rope right below
Elbryan's feet.
Elbryan caught the elf's forearm; Quintall caught her by the foot.
Then they hung, twisting and turning, Pony looping the rope about her as a
firmer brace and tugging Elbryan's tunic desperately. The ranger's hand
tightened on poor Tuntun's forearm, his muscles bulging from the strain, but
down below, heavy Quintall's grip was even stronger.
"Pull!" Elbryan begged Pony, for though they were working with all their
might, the ranger was slipping back over the lip.
Tuntun, stretched, fearing that she would simply be ripped in half,
recognized the dilemma, understanding that her friends could not hoist her and
the heavy rockman. Her free hand, holding the dagger, moved upward, and she
looked into Elbryan's shining eyes.
"No," the man pleaded, his voice barely a whisper for the lump in his
throat. He shook his head.
Tuntun stabbed him hard in the wrist, and then she and Quintall, were
falling fast. The stubborn rockman did not let go, would not let the elf, this
wretched creature who had doomed him, use those wings to save herself! Tuntun
tried to turn, tried to use her dagger...
Elbryan and Pony looked away, could not watch the final drop into the
molten pool, could not witness the end of Tuntun.
They lay in a heap on the ledge for a long while, until the continuing
fumes began to overwhelm them.
"We have to press on," the ranger said.
"For Tuntun," Pony agreed.
They leaped the gap and hurried along, relieved indeed to find that the
side passage at the bottom was no dead end, but long and fairly straight.
They relit the torch and rushed ahead, glad to put the sickening fumes and
the terrible sight behind them. Soon after, however, they came to a quick stop,
spotting a distant glow far ahead in the tunnel. Elbryan looked helplessly to
the torch in his hand; if he could see the glow . . .
Suddenly, the light far ahead intensified, and then narrowed, shooting
down the corridor, falling over Elbryan and Pony, who had to throw up their arms
to shield their eyes.
Images of demonic monsters filled their thoughts, images fast shattered by
a cry of "Ho, ho, what!" from the other end of the beacon.

CHAPTER 52
Through the Maze

Avelyn and Bradwarden were thrilled to see their companions again, but their
smiles could not hold against the tears running down Pony's cheeks and the
unmistakable mist in Elbryan's eyes.
"Tuntun," Elbryan explained, rubbing at one eye. "She came to our aid and
saved my life, but the cost was her own."
"Perhaps she is not quite dead," Avelyn replied, fumbling with his stone
sack. "Perhaps the hematite --"
"Into the magma," the ranger explained grimly, putting a hand on the monk
and shaking his head.
"A brave lass to the end," Bradwarden noted. "Such is the way of the
Touel'alfar -- finer folk I've never known." The centaur paused, letting the
eulogy hang in the air for a moment. "And what of Paulson and the little one?"
he asked.
"I do not know that they escaped the giant fight," the ranger said.
"And why did ye not go back and look for them?" the centaur went on, and
all three glanced Bradwarden's way with stunned expressions. How dare he accuse
Elbryan and Pony, if that was indeed what he was doing.
"Our goal was Aida, our mission to deliver Avelyn, to destroy the dactyl,"
Elbryan said firmly, and even as he spoke the words, he understood Bradwarden's
cunning verbal maneuver. In so pointedly reminding Elbryan and the others of the
higher goal, the centaur helped them to put Tuntun's demise in proper
perspective. She was gone, but because of her, they might move on and their
higher purpose might be achieved.
That thought driving them, the four companions pushed hard along the
corridors, looking for some sign as to which direction would get them to the
demon. The passages forked many times, and they had to choose, without any
guidance other than their own perceptions of where they might be and where the
demon's lair was likely situated.
But then, at one such fork, Avelyn stopped suddenly, and held his arm out
to prevent Elbryan from moving down to the left.
"Right," the monk insisted.
Elbryan looked at him carefully. "What do you know?" the ranger asked,
surmising from the monk's firm tone that this was no blind guess.
Avelyn had no practical answer for his friends; it was a feeling, nothing
more, but a definite feeling, as if he were sensing the magical radiations of
the otherworldly monster. Whatever the source, Avelyn knew in his heart that he
was correct, and so he started down the right-hand corridor.
The others followed without delay, and their hopes mounted when they came
to a heavy grate, bars set floor to ceiling, blocking the passage.

All went well in the south, the dactyl knew. Its armies, led by Maiyer Dek
and Kos-kosio Begulne were pressing fast for Palmaris, while Ubba Banrock's
northern force had crossed the breadth of Alpinador, right to the coast, cutting
the northern kingdom in half. Banrock's powries had linked up right on schedule
with the great powrie fleet that sailed from the Julianthes, and now that fleet
had put out once more, sailing south for the Gulf of Corona.
Despite the promising events, the demon now paced about its obsidian
throne anxiously. It felt the intrusion, the powerful magic; it knew that
Quintall had been destroyed.
The dactyl would no longer underestimate these foes that had come to Aida.
If any of them got through the final defenses . . .
The demon creature narrowed its eyes and grinned wickedly at the thought,
at the pleasures it would take in personally killing these intruders. For all
the misery its army caused, for all the death and agony, Bestesbulzibar had not
truly participated, other than the murders of a few upstarts or incompetents
within its own ranks.
The dactyl, anxious as it was, hoped that some of these intruders, at
least, would survive to get to the throne room.

"Stand far from it," Avelyn instructed, fumbling with his pouch, but
Elbryan had another idea.
"No," the ranger said. "Your magic will be too loud, I fear. There is
another way." Elbryan pulled off his pack and sorted through it, finally
producing the red gel the elves had given him, the same substance Belli'mar
Juraviel had put upon the darkfern those years ago in Andur'Blough Inninness,
allowing Elbryan to fell the sturdy plant with ease. Elbryan knew how strong
find resilient his bow was, and so he figured that if the softening gel would
work on darkfern, it might even defeat the metal.
He striped the center bar, near the corridor's low ceiling. Then he took
out Tempest and called Bradwarden to him, climbing up on the centaur that his
cut would be flat across. Hoping his instincts were true, hoping that he would
not damage his marvelous sword, Elbryan drew back and swung mightily for the
spot, both his hands clenched tightly on the hilt.
Tempest sliced right through the metal bar, then banged with a ring off
the next in line. Elbryan hopped down from the centaur and pulled the sword
blade near his face, sighing with relief when he noted it was not damaged, not
even nicked.
 Mighty Bradwarden reached to the cut bar and pulled it far to the side,
enough so that the others, at least, could easily slip through.
"Well done," Pony congratulated.
"Aye," Bradwarden agreed, "but I'll not be getting me bulky body through
that narrow hole."
Elbryan gave the centaur a wink. "I've more gel," he assured them, and
soon the next bar in line was free on the top end, as well.
So they went on, even more urgently, accepting the grate as a sure sign
that they were in an important area, probably the dactyl's own.
The passage went on and on, widening at times so that all four could move
abreast, and then narrowing so that only Elbryan and Pony could remain in front,
Avelyn behind them, the bulky centaur at the rear of the line. They passed
several side tunnels, but this one they were traveling seemed the finest, the
smoothest, and certainly the widest, and so they continued along their chosen
course. Avelyn took care to modulate the diamond light; he cupped the gem so
that the beam would shoot out more toward the front, while he, with the cat's
eye chrysoberyl, continually glanced into the gloom behind them.
And so it was Avelyn who first noticed the large shadowy forms slipping
into the main corridor from a side passage far behind.
"Company," the monk whispered, and even as he spoke, the telltale flickers
of a torch bounced across the wall from around a bend in the tunnel some three
dozen paces ahead of Elbryan.
The ranger quickly surveyed the area, then moved the group to a narrow
point -- if they were to be attacked both front and back, better that they fight
in an area too narrow to allow more than one or two enemies to come at them from
either end of the line.
The light came around the bend, another flared behind them, showing their
foes to be fomorian giants, four in front, four in back, and all armored, as had
been the ones chasing them at the mountainous entrance to the Barbacan.
Elbryan was glad indeed that they were not in an open field, for then they
would each have been fighting two at a time -- and would have had little chance
indeed. In these tight quarters, the giants had to come in, front and back, in
two ranks of two.
"Pony and I have the front," the ranger called.
"And I've the back!" Bradwarden responded, clumsily turning his bulky
frame about in the narrow tunnel.
"Not alone," Avelyn assured him, the monk moving as far up beside the
centaur as his own bulky frame would allow. Avelyn reached into a smaller pouch
and took out a handful of small prismatic celestite crystals, pale blue in
color, and began calling forth their enchantment.
"We cannot give them the offensive edge," the ranger said to Pony. Then,
suddenly, the pair charged ahead, temporarily confusing the giants, who were
certainly not used to little people rushing at them!
Elbryan started furiously, slapping his sword many times against the blade
of the giant's sword, finally pushing the weapon out wide enough for the ranger
to get in a solid, screeching slice that dented the monster's breastplate.
Pony went in with equal ferocity, though her attacks were not quite as
effective and she scored only a minor hit.
It was Elbryan, though, and not Pony, who first lost momentum, the ranger
involuntarily glancing at the side, looking at his love nearly as often as he
studied his opponent. Soon, he was dodging frantically, barely parrying a swipe
of a giant sword that would have easily lopped off his puny head.
* * *
"I wish ye might get up here," the centaur grumbled, eyeing the leading
giants. The huge brutes couldn't quite stand side by side in the narrow
corridor, but they really didn't have to, for one of them, the trailing giant,
earned a long spear. "Oh, they'll get me two to one," the centaur groaned,
swinging his cudgel back and forth, loosening up his joints.
"We shall see," Brother Avelyn promised sneakily, continuing his magical
summoning.
In came the giants at full charge; Bradwarden braced and set his hind legs
firmly. And then Avelyn threw, and the corridor before the centaur erupted in a
shower of popping, stinging explosions, snapping bursts, a dozen or more, that
stopped the charge fully and had the giants scrambling, crying out in pain.
Bradwarden recovered his wits and seized the moment, charging straight
ahead, ramming the lead giant and knocking it back and to the floor, then
turning out the spear, with his free hand, launching a heavy swing with his
cudgel that connected on the side of the second giant's helmet, knocking the
protective armor clear off the brute's head and knocking the giant against the
passage wall.
Bradwarden's second swing was even harder, all the centaur's great
strength behind it connecting solidly with the giant's vulnerable head, which
was still braced against the stone. The massive skull cracked with a tremendous
sound and the giant slumped to the floor.
But the other fomorians were back and ready, though one seemed to be
partially blinded from the celestite explosions, and Bradwarden's momentum came
to a swift halt.
Pony saw what was happening here, and she was not pleased. She knew
Elbryan trusted her -- how could he not after all their fights together? -- and
yet, fighting in such proximity had him on the defensive for her sake.
That the young woman could not tolerate, more for the practical reason
that they could not hope to win with such a posture than for any reason of
pride. Pony had to hit fast and hard, to remind her love of her prowess. She
slipped the graphite rod into her sword hand, clutching it tightly against the
weapon's hilt, and wondered if her plan would work.
Elbryan ducked another swing, a clear opening to score a wicked hit, but
he went to the side instead, picking off a sword strike aimed for Pony -- and
one she could easily have avoided on her own.
The ranger's move did leave an opening, though, the surprised giant
glancing to regard Elbryan, and Pony rushed ahead, jabbing hard into the brute's
belly. Her sword found a bit of a crease in the armor but couldn't sink in far
enough to score a decisive hit.
No need for that, the giant -- and Elbryan -- discovered a moment later,
when Pony released the stone's magical energy. A crackling black arc raced up
the weapon and leaped from its tip, right into the fomorian's belly. The giant
jolted violently, again and again, and then, when the electrical barrage finally
ended, fell back off the sword to the floor, stunned, if not dead.
The lesson was not lost on Elbryan, who marveled at the powerful
combination of sword and stone, even as he berated himself for thinking that
Pony might need his help. Not to be outdone -- and with another giant ready to
take the fallen one's place -- the ranger leaped ahead and launched a series of
furious attacks, right and left and straight ahead, Tempest moving too quickly
for the fomorian's heavy sword to keep up. The mighty elvish weapon scored hit
after hit, sparks flying as it banged hard against metal armor. Finally, Elbryan
found that crease between breastplate and girdle, mentally marking the spot.
The ranger let up for an instant, and as he expected, the giant roared and
cut mightily. Elbryan was down in a low squat before the blade ever got close to
hitting him, and he skittered under as it swooshed past. The ranger came up
hard, his aim perfect for that slight crease.
In slipped Tempest, past the armor, tearing guts and diving deep. Elbryan
moved ahead again, wanting to be well within the arc of that monstrous sword,
pushing his blade in to the hilt. The giant reached across his back with its
free hand, but there was little strength in that grip. Elbryan jerked fiercely,
once and then again, the tearing jolts straightening the agonized fomorian.
Then, seeing his work with this one finished, the ranger tore free the blade and
let the brute fall.
The last in line was quick to join in, swinging its huge torch as a
weapon.
Pony, thick into it with the third giant, took out a stone for yet another
trick. But then she heard more clearly the situation at the back of the line,
Bradwarden grunting, taking hits.
"Avelyn!" the woman called, and she tossed the stone, one she knew that
the monk could put to much more deadly effect than she, over her shoulder.
It bounced off the monk's back, catching his attention, for he was falling
into the magic of yet another gem. He noted the gift Pony had offered, though,
and halted his spell, quickly retrieving the fallen stone, the lodestone.
"Ho, ho, what!" the monk bellowed happily, bringing the deadly gem in
line. "This is going to hurt!"
"Well, be quick about it!" Bradwarden pleaded and then grunted, accepting
a heavy club hit on his left flank, for he was too busy keeping his other
opponent's sword at bay. The centaur had already taken a hit from that sword,
and had a huge gash on the side of his human torso to prove it.
Avelyn called forth the energy of the stone and let it fly, swifter than
any crossbow quarrel, more powerful than any ballists bolt. It hit the sword-
wielding giant towering right in front of Bradwarden square in the chest,
blasting a huge hole, lifting the brute clear of its feet and hurling it
backward, crashing past the club wielder to slam heavily into the last in line,
the pair going down in a heap.
Bradwarden used the moment of distraction to spin completely about, and as
the club wielder regained its balance, the centaur launched a mighty double kick
against its breastplate, knocking it back into the jumble.
"Forward!" Avelyn cried to the group.
Elbryan agreed wholeheartedly, and he leaped back to get beyond the
swishing torch, then rushed ahead, angling to dive between the two remaining
giants at the front, thrusting Tempest at Pony's foe as he went. The one
battling Pony had to turn to meet the attack, and took a hit from the woman even
as it parried the ranger's blade. Then, even worse for the fomorian, it got a
swishing torch across the face as its partner tried to catch up to the
scrambling ranger.
Pony rushed ahead and struck hard, sinking in her sword, calling forth the
jolting energy of the graphite once again. Though her. lightning was much weaker
this time, her magical energies taxed, the giant slumped back, stunned.
Then came a series of popping explosions in the air ahead of Pony, another
celestite barrage from Avelyn, singeing and confusing the fomorian pair.
Pony stared curiously at the behemoth that had been battling Elbryan, at
its suddenly too-straight posture, hips forward, shoulders back. She understood
as the torch dropped away, as the brute toppled forward, sliding off the blood-
dripping Tempest.
Avelyn flattened himself against the wall and instructed Bradwarden to run
by, for only one of the four giants that had come in at the back had any fight
left in it. Bradwarden, wounded more seriously than he had at first believed,
didn't argue, but slipped past the bulky monk, moving beside Pony, stubbornly
bearing down on the last giant in front.
The last in the pile at the rear finally extracted itself and, seeing
Avelyn standing alone, no weapon visible, it came on wildly.
Avelyn waited until the last possible second, then loosed the magic of his
latest stone, the malachite, into the corridor.
Suddenly, the giant was off balance, feet barely scraping the stone. Every
movement forced a countermovement from the weightless behemoth, and so, when the
stupid thing brought its club high overhead for a mighty chop, the energy lifted
the giant from the ground and tuned it right over in midair, a slow-motion
somersault. The giant tried desperately to get at the trickster monk, but each
twist and turn only made its predicament even worse, and soon it was tumbling,
floating helplessly back down the corridor. As soon as it cleared its fallen
companions, Avelyn was upon them, reaching into the chest of one to retrieve his
deadly magnetite. He looked up to see that last giant upside down, flailing
wildly, futilely, floating even farther away.
Avelyn snorted at the sight and turned to watch his three friends
finishing the last of that group. Then, with an almost apologetic shrug, when he
noted that the giant was far enough from his friends, the monk ran toward it,
enacting a serpentine shield and then pulling forth his powerful ruby.
Elbryan winced as he noted the centaur's wicked wound, a bleeding gash
that was fast draining the life from poor Bradwarden.
"We need the hematite," Pony remarked looking back toward Avelyn.
"Try this instead," Elbryan offered, taking off his other armband, the red
one, the one the elves had soaked in permanent healing salves.
Pony took it and went to work, while Elbryan ran ahead, both pausing,
nearly tumbling, when they heard the tremendous blast of Avelyn's fireball.
Avelyn trotted back down the corridor, the charred giant, still floating
head-down, far behind him.
The tunnel continued straight for a dozen paces, then turned sharply to
the right, where Elbryan had run.
"Move along," Avelyn instructed his weary friends, and they nodded,
understanding that their task was far from finished. Pony looked at Bradwarden,
but the centaur was smiling widely, the healing salves already at work under the
red bandage.
So on they went, Avelyn in the lead. All three stopped suddenly as Elbryan
came rushing back around the corner. The ranger hit the wall hard, using it to
turn himself so he could dive back down the corridor, and when he came up out of
the roll, the others looked past him curiously to see glowing stones fast
hardening on the floor.
"A great red man!" the ranger explained, "with the black wings of a bat --
"
"No man," Avelyn interrupted, knowing the truth of this newest foe,
knowing that they had at last met with the demon dactyl.

CHAPTER 53
Destiny

A wave of molten stone splashed around the corner, driving the group back, the
heat nearly overwhelming them. A second wave, and then more -- a river of the
magma -- coursed around the bend, and three of the group turned in full flight.
Avelyn stood his ground, though, and went quickly to work, calling upon his
stone magic to enact a shield, constructing a magical wall, floor to ceiling
across the corridor.
The demon fires rolled on, bearing down on the praying monk. Pony skidded
to a halt, realizing that Avelyn was not with her. She turned and screamed out
to him, even took a running step back toward the monk, but Elbryan held her
fast.
Avelyn's faith was put to the test as the magma flow approached, as the
heat intensified. He had used this gem, serpentine, to survive in the midst of a
fireball, but he had no real knowledge of how it would work against the demon
magma. It might defeat the heat, he supposed, but what of the sheer weight of
the flowing stone?
 Avelyn had no room for such doubts. He fell deeper into his prayers, into
the depths of the stone magic. The magma was only a couple of feet away,
rolling, bubbling.
The monk felt no heat, then, felt no hot wash from the molten stone. As
the leading edge passed through the serpentine barrier, it cooled suddenly;
turning black and solid, and the magma behind it began to flow over it, until
it, too, cooled and hardened.
Now Avelyn saw a new problem brewing: if the lava continued to pile up, it
would rise too high and block the corridor, the only way they knew to get at the
demon dactyl. Boldly the monk strode forward, stepped up on the leading wall of
obsidian, and forward, too, went his magical shield, stealing the demon's heat.
Seeing the spectacle, realizing that their friend had beaten the dactyl's
attack, the other three were quick to join him, Elbryan, Hawkwing in hand,
moving right to the side of the praying monk. They went around the bend, Avelyn
stopping the magma river fully, the demon dactyl coming in sight.
Elbryan lifted his bow and let fly, and the dactyl, so obviously surprised
to see its enemies, took the hit squarely in the chest between its humanlike
arms.
Bestesbulzibar's eyes flared, and the demon opened wide its mouth,
vomiting a stream of magma at the group, and while the serpentine shield blocked
the heat, the sheer force of the missile-like spew knocked Avelyn and Elbryan
back against the wall. The ranger recovered quickly, growling and sending a
second arrow after the first, again with perfect aim.
The dactyl howled, more in rage than pain, for' Elbryan's arrows were but
a minor inconvenience to the mighty creature.
Avelyn, though . . . that one presented a more troubling power.
The demon's arms shot forward, fingers extended, and black tendrils of
crackling electricity spouted from them, biting against the wall and running the
length of the straight passage, nipping and snapping at Elbryan and Avelyn, at
Pony and Bradwarden as they followed their friends around the bend. Avelyn had
no counter ready and the demon's magic caught him and Elbryan, holding them fast
in its sparking grasp for a long painful moment, and then hurled them both
backward to crash hard against the wall. Smoke wafting from various parts of
their clothing, the pair darted in a quick retreat around the bend, pushing Pony
and Bradwarden back the way they had come.
Avelyn desperately searched his magical repertoire, but it was Pony who
struck next, thrusting forth the graphite rod and letting loose a bolt of
streaking lightning, bouncing it off the, wall, angled perfectly to skip around
the bend and bear down on the demon. Her aim was true, it seemed from the howl
that came back at them, but that howl was followed closely by a second crackling
black bolt, this one hitting with a thunderclap that launched Pony and Avelyn --
and would have sent Elbryan, as well, except that he was holding to the sturdy
centaur -- flying to the floor.
"Time for running!" Bradwarden cried.
"Take it!" Pony called to the monk, tossing him the graphite; knowing that
he could put it to more powerful use.
"Forward, I say!" Avelyn corrected the centaur, catching the stone and
pulling Pony to her feet. He paused for just a moment, considering the fact that
his hands were full of a confusing jumble of gems, and none of them were the
particular stone he now desired. He quickly handed two stones, the malachite and
the lighted diamond, back to Pony, then he scrambled on, taking the lead toward
the bend once more. "Now the darkness is before us, so forward, I say!" Avelyn
reached into his pouch and retrieved yet another gem, a stone he had used to
defeat dactyl-inspired magic before, in a fight with a powrie general.
Avelyn focused the energy of the sunstone, building a wall before him,
shaping it and thrusting it forward, taking some comfort in the fact that Pony,
who was behind him, kept the diamond glowing brightly.
 The dactyl loosed another tremendous bolt as Avelyn rounded the bend, but
the crackling magic fell away to nothingness as it entered the disenchanted
zone.
"Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn roared, and all the friends came on in full charge.
Bestesbulzibar was confused, had not seen such a display of anti-magic in
all its millennia of life. It narrowed its gaze upon Avelyn, upon the gemstone
the monk held tightly in his extended hand, and, ignoring the charge, thinking
nothing, of the next stinging arrow that soared its way, the dactyl gathered all
its magical energy.
They were barely thirty feet away.
Twenty -- another arrow zipped in, deflecting off the dactyl's bone-hard
forehead.
Ten feet away, Avelyn roaring wildly, the ranger hooking his bow over his
shoulder and drawing forth his sword -- an elvish sword!
The dactyl's shriek echoed all through the tunnel maze of Aida, deafened
the four friends, and made them reach for their ears. The demon, recognizing the
power of Elbryan's silverel blade and wanting nothing to do with an elven-forged
weapon -- Dinoniel had wielded such a weapon! -- loosed a stream of its purest
magical force, a green line of sizzling, tingling energy aimed directly at
Avelyn, at the monk's extended hand.
The beam stopped right before the monk, wavered there, holding Avelyn in
his place, crackling sparks flying wide, forcing Elbryan to slow and shield his
eyes.
Avelyn screamed, and the dactyl shrieked again, throwing all its magical
strength, every ounce, behind the beam.
On came the green line, engulfing Avelyn's hand, the sunstone glowing
fiercely. They held for a long moment, the monk's will against the demon's
hellish strength.
The sunstone absorbed the dactyl energy, stole the line from the demon's
hand. But Avelyn's expression of joy, of victory, was short-lived, for the stone
could not contain such energy, and it threw it out, dispersed as green smoke
into the air, the sheer force of the expulsion throwing Elbryan and Avelyn
backward into Pony and Bradwarden, the resulting smoke filling the corridor.
None of the group was hurt; but the momentary distraction gave the drained
dactyl the time to retreat.
"Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn bellowed when he saw the creature half running,
half flying down the corridor, and the roaring monk was the first in pursuit.
Elbryan scrambled to untangle himself from Pony, and charged off behind
the monk, the woman coming next, and bulky Bradwarden bringing up the rear.
They sped past several side passages, around turns in the corridor, Avelyn
leading boldly, trying to keep the demon in sight, ready but without fear in
case the creature was walling for him around each bend.
They raced up some stairs, pounded fast down a long, narrow descending
slope, and came at last into a long, straight corridor, the demon visible before
them. Elbryan tried hard to get past his monk friend, then, to take up the lead
and close tile distance to the monster. But Avelyn was too focused even to
notice the ranger's attempt; even to consider letting the faster Elbryan squeeze
by him.
The monk was trying furiously to bring up the magic of the sunstone again,
but even if he couldn't manage it, Avelyn meant to get to the dactyl, to tackle
the damned thing and beat it with his bare hands if he had to!
Up ahead, the corridor widened, like the top half of an hourglass, and
then ended in a wall, broken only by a large archway, through which the demon
dactyl scrambled. Beyond this portal, Avelyn saw a huge room, braced by columns
and lit by the orange flow of molten stone.
This was the throne room, he knew, the very heart of the demon's power.
That notion only spurred the furious monk on even more, Avelyn lowering his head
and running full out, with his telltale cry of "Ho, ho, what!" He charged
through the archway with no consideration that it might be trapped, and Elbryan,
though he slowed a bit for caution, was but two running strides behind.
The dactyl, back on its obsidian throne, was ready for them. As Avelyn
passed into the room, he was hit full force with more demonic magic: a great
gust of wind that held the monk in his tracks, that sent the huge bronze doors
to the side of Avelyn swinging mightily.
Elbryan, too, felt the wind and saw the doors. He screamed out and tried
to buck, the force and dive ahead, arm extended, Tempest leading.
The doors swung closed, brushing Avelyn, spinning him about, and then
slamming together on Elbryan's forearm, smashing his bones, tearing his flesh.
Tempest fell to the floor; the doors pushed on, threatening to rip the ranger's
arm off.
Bradwarden threw Pony aside and barreled into the doors full force, but
even the centaur's great weight and strength could only move them slightly, just
enough for Elbryan to extract his arm and fall back, semiconscious, into the
corridor. Bradwarden caught him and scrambled back with him, and the bronze
doors slammed closed, leaving Avelyn alone in the throne room with
Bestesbulzibar.
Or so the monk thought. Bestesbulzibar kept his concentration on the door,
using his magic to hold it closed against the repeated slams of stubborn
Bradwarden. But then the demon's second trick became apparent as a grinding
sound filled the room and the massive stone columns began to twist and shift.
Avelyn, grasping at the opening, was quick to retrieve Tempest, but he was
no swordsman. He felt the power of the weapon's gemstone, but it was a magic to
strengthen and enhance the blade, he believed, and nothing that the monk could
access beyond that.
The closest two columns stretched out their stony arms, broke through the
inanimate stone holding fast their legs, and started the monk's way. With a
yelp, Avelyn skipped to the side, bringing the puny sword up defensively. These
two behemoths weren't going for him however, but for the bronze doors.
Avelyn held his breath, thinking that the pair would throw wide the doors
and fall over his friends. To his relief, they did not, but rather they fell
against the metal, using their bulk to seal off any chance of entry. The fact
that the maneuver put those two obsidian giants out of the fighting did little
to bolster Avelyn, for eighteen of the gigantic black animations remained, all
stepping forth now, and with the doors thus barricaded, the dactyl was free to
deal with this one intruder.
The demon leered down at the monk from its obsidian throne. "Destroy him,"
Bestesbulzibar commanded, and all the stone monsters started Avelyn's way,
except for the two holding the doors.
Avelyn took a careful measure of their approach; they were not fast-moving
things, and the monk believed that he could keep his distance, for a while at
least. He meant to do just that, and loose whatever magic he could muster
against Bestesbulzibar, but to his surprise, the demon did not remain, leaping
up from the throne, moving to the side of the dais, and diving headlong into the
lava flow, disappearing through the floor.
Avelyn growled in frustration and entertained the thought of using his
serpentine shield and chasing after Bestesbulzibar. He found that he had more
immediate problems, though, as two of the massive columns bore down on him. He
thought to use the sunstone, to counter the magic and disenchant the obsidian,
but he feared that the stone itself had not yet recovered from the strain in the
corridor. Up came the graphite instead, and Avelyn let loose a tremendous blast
of lightning, a thundering forked bolt that slammed both the columns and knocked
them back a step, sending cracks panning up and down their length.
Avelyn ran between the pair, easily avoiding their lumbering attempts to
grab him. The monk lashed out with Tempest as he passed, for good measure, and
the sword took a slice of stone from the back of a giant leg. Avelyn hardly took
comfort in that successful strike, though, realizing by the extent of the damage
that he would have to hit the thing a hundred times, at least, to destroy it,
and probably a score of times on the same spot on the leg to topple it!
So it became a game of cat and mouse, and Avelyn was the mouse. He ran all
about the great hall, igniting a fireball, and then, when that proved
ineffective, resorting to the graphite, falling into its magic again and again,
stinging giant, cracking the black stone.
After a few minutes, the monk amazingly had three of the behemoths down,
no more than great piles of broken rubble, but Avelyn couldn't possibly maintain
the pace, he realized, for he was huffing and puffing and his magical energies
were fast depleting.
He took a different tack then, rushing to the dais and scrambling up the
steps. How simple the evasion proved, for the giants could not maneuver their
great bodies to follow!
Now Avelyn focused his energy on the pair holding the door, thinking to
clear the path for his friends.
He didn't know it, but his friends were long gone.

Elbryan was hardly conscious, with Pony holding him up and holding his
smashed. arm out from his body, trying to keep it steady. Waves of pain
assaulted the ranger with every slight shift, turned his stomach and dulled his
vision. He did see Bradwarden, slamming repeatedly, stubbornly, at the doors,
not budging them in the least.
How helpless the ranger felt then! He had come all this way, and now was
denied. Was denied!
Summoning every ounce of his remaining strength, Elbryan managed to pull
away from Pony, taking two unsteady steps
toward Bradwarden, meaning to help with the door. "Hit it with a bolt o'
yer lightning!" the centaur bade Pony.
"I gave that stone to Avelyn," she replied, holding up her hands, showing
only the glowing diamond and the green-ringed malachite.
That news seemed to take the resolve from the centaur. "Then it's Avelyn
and the demon," Bradwarden said, "as the monk knew it should be."
Elbryan swooned and tumbled to the floor. His friends were beside him in
an instant, Pony propping up his head.
"Might that ye give him this," the centaur offered, indicating the red
bandage.
Pony considered it for just a moment, but when she pulled the bandage down
a bit, she realized that Bradwarden's garish wound wasn't nearly healed, and
that if she took the bandage away, it would only open once more. Elbryan's arm
was agonizing, but not life threatening, and Pony knew her love well enough to
realize that he would be angry indeed if she risked the centaur's life to
alleviate his pain.
The woman shook her head and looked back at Elbryan.
"Side passages," the ranger mumbled.
Pony turned to Bradwarden, who glanced back helplessly at the great bronze
doors. "Got nothing better," the centaur agreed, and so the three were off, Pony
supporting Elbryan and Bradwarden leading the way back down the tunnels, up the
slope and down the stairs, searching for a side passage that would get them into
the throne room from a different entrance.
Their hopes were bolstered shortly thereafter when they heard a voice --
Avelyn's voice -- cursing the demon, then crying out in pain. On they ran with
all speed; Elbryan was so strengthened by the indication that his friend might
be in trouble that he pulled away from Pony and made his own unsteady way,
stumbling often, but using Hawkwing as a crutch and moving faster than the woman
could have ushered him.
 They went down the next side passage, a narrow, winding affair, and the
talking continued, spurring them on.
Around a bend, they saw their folly, for it was not the throne room that
loomed before them, not Avelyn at all, but the demon dactyl, standing tall
across a wider expanse of the corridor, leering at them.
"Welcome," the beast said in a voice that sounded like Avelyn's.
Pony looked helplessly at her diamond, then wondered if she could make the
light shine so brightly that this creature of darkness could not withstand it.
Bradwarden's method was more straightforward, however, the centaur charging
straight ahead, singing at the top of his lungs. Elbryan moved to follow, but
could not hope to keep up.
The dactyl's laughter mocked them. The beast lifted its arms, summoning
its hellish magic. Pony cried out, thinking they would all be destroyed.
Bestesbulzibar did not aim the strike at them but rather at the floor
beneath their feet, a blast of explosive energy that shattered the stone,
dropping the corridor's floor out from beneath them.
The demon cackled and turned away, its work finished.
And so it seemed to be, as the stones and the three friends fell far away
-- a hundred feet, at least, two hundred-toward a floor of jagged stalagmites.
* * *
It came up fast through the hole in the floor at the side of the dais,
rushed past the flowing lava quickly, spewing the red stone all about. Up the
demon soared, and then it dropped, landing heavily on its muscular legs.
The monk refused to be distracted, though this demon dactyl, the darkness
of all the world, was but a few strides away. Avelyn growled and fell deeper
into the stone, grabbed up all the power the graphite would give him, and hurled
it in three rapid blasts at the pair of stone giants guarding the door.
They blew apart into rubble; the way was clear for Avelyn's friends,
except that Avelyn's friends were nowhere near the door.
"Well done!" Bestesbulzibar congratulated, clapping his human hands
together. "But all for what end?"
"Nightbird!" Avelyn cried. The monk thought to run for the doors, but
there remained too many animated columns, crowding around the dais, waiting for
him to come down.
Avelyn called out again, but the dactyl's laughter stole his voice. "They
cannot hear you, fool," Bestesbulzibar explained. "They are already dead!"
The words nearly knocked Avelyn from his feet, assaulted his mind and tore
at his heart. His lips moved in denial, but he suspected Bestesbulzibar would
not lie to him; given the demon's awful power, he suspected the demon wouldn't
have to lie to him!
So that left Avelyn against the fiend, just them, facing off from five
paces. Avelyn was past grief suddenly, and without fear. He had come here to
Aida, into this very room, to battle Bestesbulzibar, to pit his God against the
hellish power of the demon. And now he was here, the best scenario he could
rationally have hoped to find. If he won now, then his friends, all of them,
would not have died in vain.
That thought sobered the monk and calmed his nerves. He considered his
repertoire, wondered what stone magic would prove most effective against the
beast, then went with what he had in hand, his graphite.
"Wretched beast!" Avelyn boomed, his voice resonating throughout the room.
"I deny you!"
He thrust out his arm and loosed a tremendous bolt of sizzling blue
lightning, a sharp, crackling flash that slammed Bestesbulzibar right in the
chest and drove the demon back a couple of steps.
"You are strong, Avelyn Desbris," the fiend growled, all its body
quivering from the continuing grasp of the electricity. The demon spread wide
its black wings and reached back with one humanlike arm, claws extended toward
the flowing lava, grabbing the power and channeling it.
Then the demon's arms clutched tight at its chest, right where Avelyn's
bolt was holding fast, and red crackles shot forth from Bestesbulzibar's clawed
hands, red to meet Avelyn's blue bolt, joining together end to end in a
showering display.
Avelyn growled low and called to God, begging for more energy, channeling
it, as pure a conduit of godly might as ever had stood upon Corona. And that
power staggered Bestesbulzibar, nearly threw the demon to the floor.
Nearly -- for Bestesbulzibar was no conduit of power, but a source of
power, and the red bolts fought back terrifically, grabbing the ends of Avelyn's
lightning and pushing the bolt back toward the monk. Red extended to cover half
the distance between the pair, and continued to close. Avelyn shut his eyes and
growled louder, throwing every bit of himself behind the energy, and the blue
bolt gained again, drove on toward the demon.
But then the red bolt strengthened and pushed the blue back, pushed the
sizzling point of joining inexorably back, toward Avelyn. The monk opened wide
his eyes, straining, straining, but it would not be enough, he knew then.
The demonic red lightning inched closer.
She shouldn't have been able to do it; none of Avelyn's training nor her
own experiences with the stones should have allowed Pony to bring forth such
energy. But sheer terror, sheer instinct, and an unselfishness that bordered on
foolhardiness, allowed for nothing less.
Pony took up the malachite and reached out with it, somehow lending its
magic not only to Elbryan, who was within her reach, but to Bradwarden, who was
far ahead of the pair, and all three, tumbling with the broken corridor floor,
were suddenly floating more gently, drifting down as a feather might, and it
took little effort for each of them to step aside from the stalagmite teeth as
they lighted on the lower level.
"I'm not for knowing how ye did it, girl," a thoroughly shaken Bradwarden
congratulated, "but suren I'm glad that ye did it!"
But for all their joy, for all the centaur's gratitude toward Pony, the
three found themselves in a precarious position. Pony knew that she might fall
into the malachite once more and become nearly weightless, but the prospects of
getting anyone back up to the broken ledge seemed remote indeed, for they had no
rope to hang from such a height.
"One way's as good as another," the centaur was quick to point out,
motioning toward a tunnel that led out of the stalagmite-filled chamber and
wound its way along the deeper tunnels of Aida.
So on they went, with Pony holding the diamond light steady and holding
poor Elbryan steady; and Bradwarden, cudgel in hand, taking up the lead. To
their dismay, this tunnel complex proved no less a maze than the higher
passageways, and most of these corridors seemed to be leading further down and
not up.
"One way's as good as another," Bradwarden kept repeating, but it seemed
to the others that the centaur was trying to convince himself more than them.

Avelyn could not hold it at bay. The demon's red lightning hit him with
the force of a giant's punch, launching the monk to the very edge of the raised
dais. One of the stone behemoths was at the spot almost immediately, leaning
over the helpless man, its huge hand chopping down to squash Avelyn flat.
Avelyn cried out, thinking himself doomed, thinking that he had failed and
that all the quest was ended.
But the stone behemoth creaked and twisted, arm moving back against its
massive chest, legs shifting together. In a few seconds, it was no more than a
column again, leaning over, and then falling.
 Avelyn rolled out of the way; the inanimate stone crashed down and rolled
from the dais.
"He is mine!" the dactyl shrieked at the impertinent behemoth, at the
giant-turned-column that had almost stolen the fiend's most savored kill.
All the other columns retreated then, going back near the door, dispelling
any of Avelyn's thoughts of escape.
The monk stubbornly pulled himself up to his knees, then struggled to
stand tall before the monster. The dactyl, eyes narrowed, showing-respect for
Avelyn but no fear of the monk, stalked in.
Perhaps this would not be a battle of magic, the monk thought suddenly. He
had Elbryan's sword after all, that most powerful of weapons. Perhaps this was
to be a test of his body against the dactyl's, a contest of physical strength.
In one fluid movement, Avelyn lifted Tempest high and darted ahead at his
foe, slashing wildly.
He missed, the cunning dactyl easily sidestepping and then countering with
a beat of its leathery wing, slamming the rushing Avelyn on the shoulder and
launching him head over heels to the other edge of the dais.
"You are no swordsman," the fiend remarked, and Avelyn could hardly
disagree. Still the monk stubbornly climbed back to his feet and stalked toward
the monster more cautiously this time, prodding Tempest with shortened, measured
thrusts.
Bestesbulzibar began to slowly circle to Avelyn's right.
Avelyn's free hand came up, launching a handful of celestite crystals that
popped in minor explosions all about Bestesbulzibar's face. Thinking that he had
his opening, the monk charged ahead.
Bestesbulzibar was gone in a puff of smoke, in the blink of a surprised
monk's eye. Avelyn skidded to a stop, then understood his sudden dilemma and
swung about hard.
The demon, standing right behind him, battered him with its wing again,
knocking him to the ground before the swinging sword ever got close.
Avelyn struggled to his feet once more, stumbling toward the rear of the
raised platform.
Bestesbulzibar, cackling with laughter, walked around him, putting Avelyn
squarely between itself and the solid wall, cutting off the one route of escape.
Avelyn had no ideas, no plan at all. He came forward a step and began
waving Tempest, again in shortened strikes, more to buy time, to keep the fiend
at bay, than with any hope of winning.
But the demon's patience was at its end, and Bestesbulzibar came forward
in a sudden, terrifying rush.
Out went Tempest, a quicker thrust, aimed for the dactyl's heart, but
Avelyn, for all his training in those years at St.-Mere-Abelle, was no Terranen
Dinoniel, and the dactyl accepted a minor hit and swept aside the awkward attack
with one forearm, then quick-stepped into the opening.
Always ready to improvise, Avelyn launched a heavy punch with his free
hand and connected solidly with the powerful beast's chest.
Before the monk could begin to congratulate himself, he found
Bestesbulzibar's free hand around his throat, lifting him from the ground.
Avelyn tried to whack with Tempest, but the demon understood the power of the
ranger sword and would not allow the monk to bring it to bear.
"Fool," Bestesbulzibar thundered, squeezing harder -- and Avelyn feared
his head would simply pop off! "Did you think that you could even hurt me? Hurt
me, Bestesbulzibar, who has lived for centuries, for millennia? Every day I
destroy creatures ten times your worth!"
"I deny you!" Avelyn gasped.
"Deny?" Bestesbulzibar echoed. "Tell me that I am beautiful."
Avelyn stared incredulously at the demon's angular face, at the fiery
eyes, the white, pointed canines. Something about Bestesbulzibar, the sheen of
the demon's skin, the strong angles of its features, struck Avelyn profoundly as
beautiful indeed. The monk felt an overwhelming urge then to do as the demon had
asked, to admit Bestesbulzibar's beauty.
But Avelyn saw the lie, the temptation, for what it was. He stared
Bestesbulzibar right in the eye. "I deny you," he said evenly.
The dactyl heaved Avelyn across the dais, to slam hard into the back wall.
Avelyn slumped low, his vision blurred, sharp explosions going off in the
back of his head. He tried to stand but slumped again, and the room at the edges
of his vision began to grow dark.
The monk tried to get to his sunstone, thought to kill the magic in this
area as he had done in the hallway. But to what end? his reeling thoughts
screamed back, for Bestesbulzibar needed no magic to destroy him.
The dactyl paced in, towered over him.
Avelyn swooned; his thoughts went flying back to the glories of his life,
back to Pimaninicuit, the closest he had ever felt to his God. He saw again the
island at the start of the blessed showers, saw Brother Thagraine, poor
Thagraine, running desperately, reaching out toward the cave, toward Avelyn.
Then falling dead, and Avelyn remembered rushing to him, remembered his
horror, fast turned to curiosity . . .
Avelyn reached into his second pouch and pulled forth the giant amethyst
crystal, the mysterious stone humming with magical energy.
The dactyl hesitated at the sight, at the stone aglow with teeming magic.
"What have you?" it demanded.
In all truth, Avelyn didn't know the answer to that question. Growling
with every inch, all pain vanished, Avelyn Desbris forced his legs under him and
slid back up the wall to stand before the hellish fiend.
The dactyl growled and came on.
Following instincts that he could only hope were from God, Avelyn tossed
the stone into the air, and then he and the dactyl both hesitated, surprised,
for the heavy crystal did not fall but hovered in place.
Again, with no logical basis for the movement, Avelyn exploded into
action, grabbing Tempest in both hands and swinging mightily even as
Bestesbulzibar reached for the tantalizing stone.
Mighty Tempest sheared right through the crystal, and the whole of it blew
into dust, shattered a thousand times.
The demon stared dumbfoundedly at the dusty cloud, at Avelyn, as if to ask
what the man had done, and again, Avelyn had no answers.
From within that dust cloud came a low humming noise, a growling almost,
and, like a ripple in a pond, a purplish ring emanated, rolling through Avelyn
and the dactyl, rolling out to the edges of the room, deflecting off the stone
again and again, crossing back in on itself.
More rings, rolling, humming, mounting.
"What have you done?" Bestesbulzibar demanded.
Avelyn, his head throbbing once more, clutched desperately at his
sunstone, though he thought the thing a pitiful counter to the mounting
strength.
The ominous growling increased tenfold, a hundredfold, deafening Avelyn,
blocking the sounds of the dactyl's shrieks. The creature watched in amazement
as its stone columns crumbled to dust, as if the very vibrations had shattered
the obsidian.
Bestesbulzibar turned on Avelyn, murder in its flaming eyes.
The dais lurched; a great crack opened in the floor and a gout of steam
hissed through.
"Fool!" the dactyl shrieked wildly. "Fool! What have you done?"
"Not I," Avelyn answered under his breath, though he knew that the demon
could not possibly hear him. "Not I" The monk understood then, knew his fate and
willingly accepted it.
 He hooked the bag of stones, all but the sunstone which he still clutched
tightly, over Tempest's blade. He noticed then the stone in Tempest's pommel,
and recognized it for the first time as some sort of sunstone, an accessible
gem. It was too late for him, though, and so he grabbed the sword at mid-blade,
and thrust it straight up above his head.
The left-hand wall of the throne room crumbled; the twin lava flows
intensified, spurting molten stone across the room.
The dactyl shrieked and loosed a bolt of black lightning at Avelyn, but
the monk was fully into the sunstone shield then, and the magic was stolen
before it ever got to him.
Bestesbulzibar leaped away, flew all about the room, looking for an
escape. Then, with none evident, the fiend came straight for Avelyn, thinking to
punish, to tear and to kill.
But then the demon was tumbling, the resounding, deafening roar overcoming
it in mid-flight, stealing its concentration, stealing its strength.
Bestesbulzibar crawled across the dais, away from Avelyn -- who was standing
tall, shining, praying -- and toward one of the lava flows.
The hundreds of purplish rings converged in the middle of the room.
Aida, the very mountain itself, exploded.
Far below the jolt sent all three of the friends, even sturdy Bradwarden,
flying wildly about the tunnel. Elbryan slammed hard, into the wall of the
narrow passageway with his already broken arm. Waves of agony assaulted him, and
despite all the courage and determination he could possibly muster, he found
himself slumping down into blackness.
Pony, too, was dazed but not so much that she couldn't hold fast to her
diamond and keep the precious light glowing, though in the sudden burst of dust,
it seemed a meager beacon indeed. She struggled back to her feet as the rumbling
continued, as the walls and the floor beneath her feet shifted and bounced. She
somehow got to Elbryan and propped him up, hugged him tightly, thinking it
fitting that they die in each others' arms.
But then, after what seemed like an hour but was in fact no more than a
few minutes, the rumbling stopped, and the ceiling did not fall in on them.
Pony's relief lasted only until she managed to locate Bradwarden through
the dust; the centaur was by far the worst off. He stood braced against the
corridor's right-hand wall, wedged in tight, his human torso bent far back, arms
widespread with muscles bulging, to hold back the largest slab of stone
imaginable, to hold up the very mountain itself!
Pony gently eased Elbryan down, then ran for the centaur, crying out his
name. She pulled out the malachite as she went, thinking to levitate the block
that the centaur might escape.
She couldn't begin to move it; Avelyn himself, with a piece of malachite
ten times this one's strength, would not have budged so huge a slab. To Pony's.
surprise, Elbryan came up then, groggily, barely conscious, Hawkwing, in hand.
With great effort, the battered man wedged the bow in tight against the wall,
trying to use it as a lever to relieve some of the pressure on the centaur.
"Ah, me boy, ye'll not be moving this one," the doomed centaur groaned.
"She's got me stuck, and got me dead, don't be doubting!".
Elbryan fell back against the wall, dizzy, defeated, with no answers.
"Bradwarden," Pony breathed helplessly. "Oh, my friend, all the mountain
would have fallen on us but for your great strength."
"And all the mountain'll be falling soon enough," the centaur replied.
"Run to the outside and yer freedom."
Pony's horrified expression was all the reply Bradwarden was going to get.
"Go on!" the centaur yelled, and the exertion cost him an inch, the huge
slab sliding ever lower, bending him backward. "Go on," he said again, more
calmly. "Ye cannot move the damned mountain! Don't ye make me death a
meaningless thing, me friends. I beg ye, get out!"
 Pony looked at Elbryan for guidance, but the man was past reasoning,
slumping once again into blackness. She stared hard at the centaur then,
thinking this to be the cruelest play of all. How could she leave so gallant a
friend? How could that be expected of her?
And yet Pony realized the sincerity of the centaur, saw it clearly in his
calm features. She imagined herself in his position and knew what she would
expect of her friends.
Pony moved up very close to Bradwarden, bent over to him, and kissed him
on the cheek. "My friend," she said.
"Always," the centaur replied, and then his visage and his voice hardened.
"Now run. Ye owe me that!"
Pony nodded. It was the most difficult thing she'd ever had to do, and yet
she did not hesitate. She pulled Elbryan up to his feet, hooked her arm under
his shoulder, and started off without looking back. The pair had barely left the
corridor when they heard the rock shift once again, heard the resigned groan of
the breaking centaur.

Pony wandered for hours in the twisting darkness, with only the diamond
light to guide her, and that growing ever dimmer as exhaustion sapped her
energy. She found tunnels blocked by flowing lava, others by thick
concentrations of sulfurous fumes, and still others that simply ended in a solid
wall or in a deep chasm that she could not cross.
Elbryan tried hard to keep up with her, to be less of a burden, but his
legs were too wobbly, the pain too intense. Several times, he whispered for Pony
to leave him behind, but that, of course, she could not do. Another idea came to
her, then, and she took out the malachite, lending some of its levitational
magic to Elbryan's body, greatly lessening her load.
And then finally, as hope began to fade to empty despair, as her magical
energies at last began to fade to nothingness, the woman felt a breeze, and it
was cool and soft, not like the hot wash of flowing lava.
Pony concentrated hard. The diamond was all but out, a pinprick of light
that showed her nothing in the heavy air. The malachite's power was no more,
Elbryan leaning heavily against her. She stumbled on, following the current,
backtracking the gentle breeze. She stumbled and fell, crawled back to her knees
and tugged Elbryan along, and then she stumbled again. It wasn't until,
exhausted beyond her limits, she rolled onto her back, that she realized that
she was out of the mountain; under a sky darkened by smoke.
Just before Pony drifted off to sleep, one patch of that sky cleared,
showing a single, shining star, then a second, then a third.
"Avelyn, Bradwarden, and Tuntun," the woman whispered, and merciful sleep
took her.

Epilogue

It was Elbryan and not Pony who was the first to wake, the sky still dark before
the dawn and still heavy with billowing smoke. The ranger tried hard to remember
what had happened, then he did, and he sat, head bowed, fighting away despair.
Worst of all, Elbryan did not know Avelyn's fate, though he suspected the
monk was dead. What of the dactyl? Had the creature been consumed, or had it
merely flown away before the blast?
Elbryan lifted his eyes at that unsettling notion, looked at the sky as if
he expected the dactyl demon to be swooping upon him even then.
What he saw was a glow, coming from higher up on what remained of the
mountain, a soft white light atop the blasted peak.
Pony awakened shortly thereafter, the dulled dawn just beginning, but
still the glow from atop the mountain was faintly visible. Without saying a
word, the battered pair gathered up their things and started off, up the
mountain trails, supporting each other through every step. Only when the dawn
broke fully -- dimmed by the huge smoke cloud -- could they appreciate the
absolute devastation that had come to the mountain and to the valley before it.
Nothing lived down there, they both knew. Nothing could possibly have
survived. All the trees that had been on Aida's slopes were laid out flat,
leafless, most of their branches blown away. Empty logs, gray with ash,
stretched away in the gloom. Nothing moved across that gray sea, save the
occasional flutter of ash, caught by a swirl of wind. No birds flew above it, no
sounds at all broke the eerie stillness of the devastated morning.
Neither did Elbryan or Pony speak out, too overwhelmed by the sight. They
continued on their way, struggling past broken stones and through patches of
warm ash hip deep, hoping for some answer.
They came over the edge of the now flat-topped mountain, ;n sight of a
huge plateau of empty grayness -- except for one tiny spot of light. Toward it
they went, trudging on, plowing through the heavy ash. They could not discern
the source until they were very close, within a dozen strides, and then they
hesitated.
An arm, Avelyn's arm, protruded from the ash, holding fast Tempest at mid-
blade and with a bag hanging below that.
Elbryan rushed ahead, thinking to dig his friend from the ground, thinking
that Avelyn had somehow survived, had enacted a magical shield to protect
himself even from this level of destruction.
When he reached the spot, he found his folly, found that the ground around
Avelyn's arm was solid and only lightly covered in ash, and the monk was surely
dead, his arm and hand withered, dried out, as if the great heat of the
explosion had taken all the fluid from his body.
"The dactyl is destroyed," Pony said firmly when she arrived beside
Elbryan. "Avelyn killed it."
Elbryan looked at her.
"Else his gift to us would have been stolen away by the demon," the woman
reasoned, and she reached over and worked the sword and bag free of the withered
hand. The glow went away instantly, but the arm remained, extended.
Pony handed Tempest to the ranger, and she was not surprised when she
opened the bag to find all of Avelyn's stones, except the amethyst and the
sunstone, within.
"It is a message," she said with confidence. "He gave this to us as a
message that the dactyl is defeated."
"A message and a responsibility," Elbryan replied, looking from Pony's
eyes to the bag of gemstones. "Avelyn saved us, saved us all, but the friar is
demanding repayment."
The woman nodded and looked, too, at the precious bag, at Avelyn's choice,
at her responsibility. "There may already be another Brother Justice on our
trail," Pony remarked.
Elbryan lifted Tempest with his healthy arm. "Then I must mend my arm," he
replied. "Or learn to fight left-handed."
Thus, Elbryan and Pony walked away from Avelyn's chosen grave, from
Tuntun's last breath, from Bradwarden's tomb. They crossed the ash-filled valley
with great difficulty, having to stop often from weariness, and that only making
things worse since they had no fool or water.
Finally, they made the mountains bordering the Barbacan, and just over the
ridges, they found life again and water to drink. They spent more, than a day at
rest, and when she felt strong again, Pony used the hematite to relieve much of
Elbryan's pain and to set his bones fast on the mend.
And so it was with strides much stronger that the pair continued on their
way down the southern slopes of the Barbacan. Near the bottom, wary for any
goblins or, other monsters that might be about, they found another friend.
 Elbryan sensed Symphony's approach long before the horse came in sight.
The ranger didn't know how the stallion had gotten out there, but then he
thought of a certain elf, a stubborn and mischievous elf that had never learned
to accept an order.
"Tuntun," Pony remarked, figuring the riddle.
Elbryan managed a smile. He slid Tempest into its sheath, looped Hawkwing
over his back, then climbed up, offering his hand to Pony.
They rode easily that day, picking their careful way, wary of enemies.
That night, they camped on a high plateau, which they agreed to be the most
defensible position in the area. No monsters presented themselves, no threat at
all, but the choice of the high plateau proved a good one, for in the southern
sky, reaching about the horizon like the arms of God, shone the blessed Halo.
Pony and Elbryan rode fast with the. break of dawn, south along the wild
trails, the weary and grieving victors, the new protectors of the holy stones.